Hi Jacque,
Your question about portfolios is interesting.
We have nearly 14 years of formal and informal research on the use of
portfolios in professional education, both as an assessment tool and
as a support for teaching and learning.
Portfolios are very effective as an assessment tool. Used well they resolve
most of the problems associated with other forms of assessment of professional
education - particularly when it involves praxis and high level professional
skills in areas such as design education.
Portfolios can be problematic when used badly. An example of this would
be if new students were asked to produce a portfolio as a means of entry
to a course: a situation that raises several equity and assessment issues.
In many cases these problems can be fairly easily solved. They have been
sucessfully solved in several professional programs we know that use
portfolios as their main assessment medium.
Guidance for designing courses to gain the benefits of portfolio-based
assessment can be found in 'Portfolio Assessment: A Guide for Lecturers
Teachers and Course Designers' by Trudi Cooper and available from Praxis
Education (www.love.com.au/praxis). Other texts that may be of interest
are "Portfolio Assessment: A Guide for Students" by Trudi Cooper, and
"Portfolio Assessment: A Guide for Nurses and Midwives" by Trudi Cooper
and Carolyn Emden. All books are Australian $27.45 + postage and mailed
within 48 hours.
If there is interest from the design education field, and someone interested
in a joint authorship, I would be happy to publish a text on portfolio
assessment for design education.
Best wishes,
Terry
_________________________
Dr Terence Love
Praxis Education
GPO Box 226
Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel & Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.love.com.au/praxis/
ABN: 75 335 207 165
_________________________
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From: Jacque Shaw <[log in to unmask]>
To: Internet Mail::[[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Use of portfolios as entry requirements for design based courses
Date: 4/22/02 12:52 PM
Hello,
I am currently researching the use of portfolios as a means of selection
for
entry into design based courses and am asking if anyone has any particular
comments about this. The School of design at Curtin University has abolished
the use of portfolios as an entry requirement in 2002 and is solely basing
it on academic achievement in secondary school. As far as my research
has
gone this does not seem to be a good criteria for selecting design students
as there are no strong correlations between the two variables.
I am wanting to build on the research out there that suggests that the
use
of portfolios is an efficient and fair way of selection, particularly
in
design. Most other institutions in Australia still seem to use the portfolio
for entry and I am puzzled to see why it has been abolished at our
university. Any pointers for further reading or general comments of what
people think about this would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Jacque Shaw
Second Year Visual Communications Course Coordinator
School of Design
Curtin University
Perth
Western Australia
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