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What are Student Portfolios? | The Ultimate Guide to Student Portfolios (2024)

At Unrulr, we’re interested in the future of education. We believe authentic learning is much more than tests and grades— it’s about experiences, human connections, and individual passions. One of the best ways to gain a nuanced picture of the whole learner is through a curated and living student portfolio.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to student portfolios, explore why student portfolios are important by looking at some benefits for both learners and educators, and share some tips for implementing and assessing student portfolios in your learning community.

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Read on to learn about student portfolios and how to get started.

What are Student Portfolios?

Student portfolio definition.

A student portfolio is a collection of student work compiled over time to showcase a learner’s progress, skills, and achievements. This can include project work samples, finished assignments, case studies, and self-reflections. Student portfolios can be digital or physical and tailored to specific subjects or projects. In this guide, we will mostly be talking about digital student portfolios.

Student portfolios are commonly used for:

Tracking student progress over time Student portfolios can document a learner's progress and understanding of a particular subject or skill. Educators can use the portfolio to gauge how a student has grown and changed over the course of a school year and identify areas where additional support may be needed.

Assessing student work Educators can use the portfolio as a summative assessment tool to evaluate a student's mastery of a particular concept or skill and provide constructive feedback on how to improve. Additionally, portfolios can be used as a formative assessment tool to regularly check for understanding and get instant feedback to quickly determine what your students need more help with.

Communicating with parents and other stakeholders Student portfolios can be used to communicate a student's progress to parents and other stakeholders, such as school administrators or mentors. This can provide a more holistic and textured picture of a learner's abilities and potential than a traditional report card or test score.

Self-reflection and self-assessment Student portfolios can serve as a metacognition tool when learners reflect on their progress and understanding and identify areas where they need to improve. This can help students take ownership of their learning and set goals for their future growth. Reflection is a core feature of posting progress updates on Unrulr.

Documenting learning for college and career readiness Student portfolios can showcase a student's knowledge and achievements to external stakeholders, such as college admissions or potential employers.

What to Include in a Student Portfolio

Many types of works can be included in a student portfolio, depending on the subject or project and the portfolio medium. Some common examples include:

• Writing samples : essays, journals, research papers, and creative writing pieces
• Artwork and designs : drawings, paintings, graphic designs, and 3D renderings
• Photography and videos : photo essays and short films
• Music and audio recordings : compositions and performances
• Applications and design artifacts: coding assignments and UX/UI design case studies

Traditionally, portfolios primarily focus on polished final products with less emphasis on the journey that led to those products. Modern portfolios should aim to focus on process as much as final products, giving educators and other viewers insight into the learner’s thought process and learning journey.

Why are Student Portfolios Important?

Student portfolios are an important tool for presenting and assessing student work that is hands-on or project-based. They help organize individual materials that are relevant to a specific project or experience, providing a more complete representation of a learner’s progress and accomplishments. Portfolios can also be used to tie together separate projects within a given subject or class, providing a longitudinal look at a student's learning journey.

The creation and evaluation of student portfolios should be a collaborative process that benefits both students and teachers.

Why are Portfolios Important for Students?

Of course, when considering the benefits of student portfolios, we should start with the students themselves! One of the main benefits of student portfolios is that they are curated by the learner, giving them ownership of how their learning is represented. 

Other student benefits include:

• providing a visual representation of their progress
• improving self-reflection and metacognition skills
• fostering organization and presentation skills
• encouraging a sense of agency and ownership over their learning
• serving as a valuable tool for college and job applications

By regularly updating their portfolio and presenting their work effectively, students are equipped with crucial skills for college and career readiness, and are empowered to become active participants in their education. This kind of learner agency is essential for deeper learning.

Why are Portfolios Important for Teachers?

Educators can also reap the rewards of student portfolios! Student portfolios can help educators to:

• gain a visual representation of student understanding and growth
• evaluate student work and provide actionable feedback
• track student progress over time
• reflect on their teaching practices and identify areas for improvement
• engage in differentiated instruction and individualized learning

Incorporating student portfolios into teaching styles like project-based and experiential learning can enhance student opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Reviewing student portfolios can also help teachers reflect on their teaching practices, allowing them to identify areas for improvement and use student work as evidence of their own growth and development as educators. It's a win-win situation!

How to Create a Student Portfolio

When it comes to putting together portfolios in the classroom, it's all about letting the students take the lead! They should be the ones creating their portfolios and choosing what pieces of work to showcase. That being said, as an educator, it’s your job to coach your students on how to best represent their work.

Creating an effective student portfolio requires some planning and attention to detail. Here are a few steps students should follow when creating a portfolio:

• Define the purpose and goals of the portfolio
• Select the type of portfolio that best suits their needs
• Gather and organize work and materials
• Reflect on their work and self-assess their progress
• Present their work in a professional and organized manner

Defining the Purpose and Goals of the Portfolio

It is essential to define the purpose and goals of the portfolio. Students should consider what they want to accomplish with the portfolio and what they want their audience to see. Ask your students to consider the questions:

• What course, project, or subject matter are they creating the portfolio for?
• What types of work will they be sharing?
• Who will be the main audience they will present their work to?

This will help them select the best type of portfolio and determine what work and materials to include.

Selecting the Type of Portfolio

There are several types of portfolios, including traditional portfolios, electronic portfolios, and online portfolios. Have your learners consider their goals and the kind of work they want to showcase when selecting the right type of portfolio for their needs.

There are a few different options for setting up student portfolios, including:

• Digital portfolio platforms like Unrulr, bulb, or SpacesEDU make it easy to share evidence of learning through multimedia, such as photos, videos, documents, and written reflections.
• Class blogs or websites give students their own page to post their work and show off their skills. This is an excellent option for younger students who may not be ready to set up their own website.
• Individual blogs or websites allow students to get creative with how they house their portfolios. Many drag-and-drop website editors simplify the web design process, such as Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress, to name a few.
• Cloud-based storage platforms like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive allow students to store and share their work with their teachers and classmates. While this option is easy to implement, it offers the least customization of the other options and may be difficult to navigate.
• Physical portfolios like folders or binders, are an old-school way to store and showcase student work.

Gathering and Organizing Relevant Work and Materials

Once your students have selected the type of portfolio they want to create, it is time for them to gather and organize their work and materials. This includes choosing the work samples, organizing them logically, and including descriptions and reflections for each item.

Reflection and Self-Assessment

Self-reflection and assessment of progress are integral to creating an effective student portfolio. Students should be encouraged to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, set goals for future growth, and identify areas for improvement. This type of higher-level thinking and metacognition is essential for deeper learning .

Presenting Work in a Professional and Organized Manner

Finally, when it comes time to present their work, coach students on how to showcase their portfolio in a professional and organized manner. Ensure students use proper presentation tools and prepare adequately ahead of time. This will help them effectively demonstrate their skills, knowledge, and progress to others, including college admissions officers or potential employers.

5 Tips for Getting Started with Student Portfolios

Getting started with student portfolios in your classroom can seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be— here are our tips to help you get started:

• “MVP it": Don't try to do too much too soon. Instead, create a minimum viable product by starting with a smaller cohort and a single project or experience. This will allow you to get your feet wet with student portfolios and get actionable data and feedback.
• Build a culture of documentation: Making documentation a regular part of the learning process will ensure that it feels authentic and students can see the growth in their portfolios.
• Use a variety of multimedia: To make portfolios as diverse and well-rounded as possible, encourage students to document their portfolios using videos, photos, PDFs, and other multimedia to capture their process and growth.
• Encourage self-reflection: Encourage your students to reflect on their process, identity, and the ups and downs of their learning journey.
• Find a tool that will actually be used: Look for a tool that allows students to see each other's work, document in a way that feels authentic, and share their portfolios with others.

Student portfolios present the opportunity for learners to showcase their skills, knowledge, and growth in a fun and engaging way (don't forget the fun part!).

Assessing Student Portfolios

When assessing student portfolios, it's important to remember that the goal is to gain a holistic view of student progress and understanding. Some questions you should ask yourself are:

• Are the students demonstrating progress and growth over time?
• Have they effectively applied the skills and knowledge they have learned in a real-world context?
• Are they effectively engaging in reflection and self-assessment?

Providing actionable feedback is essential to help students continue developing and improving their skills. Keep in mind the learning objectives or core competencies of your learning community— using a rubric or criteria to guide your assessment may be helpful.

Make the most of portfolios by incorporating peer assessment into the mix. It's a win-win: students get a fresh perspective on their work, and their peers get valuable practice evaluating and critiquing. Additionally, crowdsourcing assessment might just save you some time 😉.

Unleash the Power of Student Portfolios

Student portfolios are a powerful tool for enhancing student learning and engagement and assessing student progress and understanding. Whether you're a teacher looking to track student progress over time or a student eager to demonstrate your skills in a real-world context, portfolios can benefit all parties involved.

So why not give it a try? Start small with a single project or assignment, and see its impact on student learning and engagement. The results might surprise you!

Book a demo or create an Unrulr account today.

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Using Portfolios to Assess Student Learning

Allowing students to select the work that they feel is most representative of their learning is a powerful way to evaluate student knowledge.

How should a teacher, school, or system determine the purpose of a portfolio? It depends on what they are using them for. It is essential to know your community so you can select the type of portfolio that will serve it best. You will also need to review state requirements and how best to fulfill them, especially if the portfolio is going to take the place of something more traditional. Consider the following questions:

•   What are you hoping to achieve with this portfolio?

•   What skills and content do you want students to demonstrate?

•   Will the portfolio be assessed? If so, how?

•   What criteria will show successful completion?

•   What does exemplary work look like?

•   What kind of variety will be acceptable?

•   In what format should portfolios be submitted?

•   Where will the portfolio be housed, and will it be digital or hard copy?

•   Who will have access to the portfolio once it is created?

•   How much autonomy does any individual teacher or student have when creating a portfolio?

•   What kinds of buckets will students have to show learning? (Buckets are the overarching competencies in which multiple subject areas can fit.)

•   What standards will be demonstrated through the portfolio? Will students need to present evidence of learning or just reflect on individual selections?

•   What process will you use to teach students to “collect, select, reflect, connect”?

After asking these questions, it is crucial to backward-plan from what the successful candidate will contribute. What kinds of artifacts will show the success criteria as planned? How many different opportunities will they have to show that skill or knowledge in class? Once we know what we want our outcomes to be, it is easier to ensure that we are teaching for success. Teachers should ask, “What do kids know and what knowledge are they missing, and how will I fill the gaps?” Leaders should ask, “What do teachers know, and how much professional learning do we need to provide to ensure consistency if we are implementing portfolios together as a school or system?”

Co-Constructing Selection Criteria

Once you’ve identified a portfolio type and determined a purpose, you can start getting more granular. How do individual class objectives meet the needs of generic determined buckets, and how can you ensure students co-construct the portfolio selection criteria? (Remember, generic buckets are the larger competencies that all classes and content areas will fit in. They are “generic” because they don’t get into specific standards.) Students will need to express the end goal of their portfolio first and then come up with a specific checklist to follow while deciding what to include.

Creating a Professional Portfolio as a Model

It is always helpful to complete an assessment you are asking students to do and identify any stumbling blocks they may encounter as well as making sure every step of the assignment is taught in advance. One way to ensure this is to create a professional portfolio that mirrors the kind of portfolio students are asked to create.

Portfolio Assessment Versus Traditional Testing

Standardized testing seeks to level the playing field for all students. Of course, most educators understand that such tests do nothing of the sort.

Standardized tests privilege the few who may be good at test taking or have the opportunity to work with tutors. Worse, they are often misleading and biased in favor of certain social and cultural experiences. (For example, when I took the New York State English Regents exam, one of the questions had to do with vaudeville, a long-outdated form of theatrical entertainment that students from other cultures might never even have heard of.) Other forms of testing would better illustrate the depth and understanding of student learning while also giving students more agency and decreasing their anxiety.

If educators genuinely want to know what students know and can do, they should have a universal portfolio system in place that allows students to gather evidence of learning over time. This can be implemented at the national or state level. Educators at every level should be included in the development process to devise the success criteria and the skill sets to be demonstrated over time. If we gather the right stakeholders to make sound decisions, all students will benefit.

Once criteria have been determined, students can start collecting learning from their earliest educational experiences. They can be issued an online account where work can be scanned and collected each year. This information can be shared with parents, students, and future teachers to help inform instruction. Rather than produce test scores that often don’t highlight the depth of student learning, these online portfolios provide a more accurate picture of how students are doing.

Students can be taught to select work they are proud of for their portfolios and to express why they have selected it. Schools and/or states can determine how many pieces should be selected each year, and students can have ownership over what they believe best displays their learning. Obviously, teachers will be supporting students throughout this process.

After students make their selections, they should write standards-based reflections about what the pieces demonstrate and what they learned throughout the process. Because younger students won’t necessarily understand how to do this right away, teachers should scaffold the process a little longer and adjust the language of the standards to be more kid-friendly. Then the feedback they provide on students’ selections will be in a language the students understand, ensuring they’ll be able to progressively do more on their own as the year goes on.

At the end of each school year, students should discuss the goals they’ve set and met as well as new goals to be worked on in the following year. Students can learn the language to use for these discussions at a young age. In the goals, students should talk about the areas where they see progress and then decide what they want to work on moving forward.

Each content area should have a subfolder in the portfolio. In addition to content-specific goals and learning related to academics, students should also be able to demonstrate interpersonal skills like communication, collaboration, and self- regulation. Rubrics can be developed to help students assess their learning levels. Graduation criteria, as well as college- and career-readiness criteria, should also be included.

One high school I taught at used to have exit presentations where students had to defend their learning and express why they felt they were ready for their next learning journey. Instead of testing, consider implementing these presentations at the end of each school year. Students will get comfortable sharing what they have learned and asking questions to help clarify that learning. Students, teachers, and leaders can sit on the panels during these presentations. Throughout the school year, students can be taught to lead their conferences, and their parents can sit with them to review the portfolio work. Advisory teachers should be there to provide support, too. In the younger grades, where there is only one teacher, students should be included in the conferences and not left at home. It is important that conversations about learning be conducted with the learner present.

Learning is nuanced, and assessment should be, too. Be sure to offer students the opportunity to be seen as whole people who can demonstrate different skills and knowledge in many ways over time.

Source:  Student-Led Assessment: Promoting Agency and Achievement Through Portfolios and Conferences  (pp. 49–52), by S. Sackstein, Arlington, VA:  ASCD. © 2024 by ASCD. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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Transition and Assessment for Exceptional Learners – EDSP 525

CG • Section 8WK • 07/01/2018 to 12/31/2199 • Modified 09/05/2023

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Course Description

This course provides a study of the process of the use of assessment for the diagnosis and development of effective interventions for exceptional learners in the general development of special education services and transition planning for post-secondary education, employment, and independent and community living. Included are discussions of implications for interventions, curriculum planning, and program development.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the  Academic Course Catalog .

The field of special education constantly evolves in the context of legal mandates, best practices, understandings of causation and planned instruction, and in services available for support. With IDEA 2004, a renewed focus has been placed in transitional practices for moving students from secondary environments to the worlds of work, independent living, and community living. This course seeks to use tried-and-true methods for developing successful transition plans (strategies and coordination) to meet individual student needs. The legal mandates and the Christian moral mandates are used as a foundation for such important work.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings, selected journal articles, and lecture presentations

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations , the candidate will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (5)

For each Discussion, the candidate will post a thread of 400–500 words in answer to the prompt provided and post at least two replies of 200–250 words to other classmates’ threads. Each thread and each reply should include at least 2 references. (CLO: A, B, C, E)

Case Studies Analysis Assignment

The candidate will analyze three case studies of high school students with special needs to determine needs, preferences, interests, strengths, and possible post-secondary goals. (CLO: B, C)

Context for Learning Assignment

The candidate will provide context information for a focus learner with an individualized education plan. (CLO: A, C, D)

Lesson Plan Assignment

Based on a learning goal and baseline date for the focus learner, the candidate will complete 3-5 consecutive lessons (or learning segments), instructional materials, and assessment(s) using the templates provided in LiveText.  (CLO: A, C, D)

Planning Commentary Assignment

The candidate will describe the plans for the learning segment and explain how the instruction is appropriate for the focus learner and the content that is being taught. (CLO: A, C, D)

Student Portfolio Assignment

The candidate will create a portfolio based upon a case study (include IEP, assessments given, skills checklist, etc.) To complete this assignment, refer, to the portfolio template provided in LiveText. (CLO: A, C, D)

Assessment Project Assignment

Candidates are required to identify, review, and develop the understanding of a transition assessment by analyzing and interpreting data based on the assessment results. (CLO: A, C, D, F)

IEP Assignment

The candidate will develop an IEP for a student with a disability by following the guidelines and documents provided in Canvas. (CLO: A, C, D, F)

ITP Assignment

The candidate will develop a transition plan based upon a case study outlining necessary transition planning for academic, social, vocational, and community skills. (CLO: A, C, D, F)

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