Portfolios are usually used to highlight work that individual students have accomplished over a period of time. That’s why you should propose it at the beginning of your course in order to let students be able to fill it periodically during the course length. You have to identify the teaching goals that will guide the selection and assessment of students’ work for the portfolio and ask yourself “What do I want the students to learn?” Based on these goals, you can proceed with portfolio structure and rubric definition (you can find a simple one here below that you can then personalise). Once ready, you should introduce it to your class, presenting the modalities they have to follow to fill it in (for example, what to write, the length of it, how and when the entries will be assessed). After they finish their work, according to the deadline you gave, you can explain the guidelines for their presentations, if you want them to. You can also choose to explain them at the beginning, so that your students will know what the final requirement is.

Click on the image below to download the template of this activity; you can find a detailed example of portfolio structure on the Portfolios toolbox webpage.

write it down