Christensen Chapter 7: Portfolios

I must say this was a bit of brief chapter for Christensen, but overall an intersting take on the concept of creating student portfolios. I must say I like the idea, and with the proper direction I think this could be a great and rewarding project of sorts. My only personal experience with porfolio's was my freshman year of college in English 105. We had to create a portfolio that consited of I believe 5 essays that we had written over the course of the semester, with multiple drats, and reflections as well. I remember at the time I was not too fond of the idea because I didn't have the desite to revise papers that had already been revised and handed in, but I think it was good learning experience as well.

I think portfolios are good though for students to see the amount of growth that is made from where they started and where they now have come to be. I like that Christensen seems to be very much into personal growth rather than simply sticking a grade on top. I have had professors and teachers over the years that were on both ends of the spectrum. One moment that sticks out to me though, is that for an English class I had last year in fact, I had tried my hardest the entire semester and by the time the last paper came about I was burnt out. My style of writing had greatly improved over the course of the semester, and this is something that my professor often commented on throughout my papers. When I turned in this last paper I was not satisfied and expected a very low grade, however I actually recieved a decent score. Attached to my paper was a critique along with some comments on how to improve and why I got the grade I did. My professor had told me that while this was not my best piece of writing he can still see areas that I have improved on over the course of the class, and that my improvement has been so significant that he was giving me the benefit of the doubt that this paper I simply took the safe road, and that while it was not A worthy, that he would give me a B and that I should be really proud of how much I have accomplished over the past few months.

I feel that portfolios make it possible for students to reflect, which is something that many may not do on a regular basis. I woul say with proper guidelines and allowing enough time and prep for this assignment, it would prove to be very successful and rewarding in the long run.