Portfolio of Student Work: Focus on Research Standard

Context:

At SHS we have spent the past two years working together to improve the quality of our students’ research-based work.  During that time we have emphasized inquiry and process and have explored finding quality resources, coaching students to develop effective thesis statements, combating plagiarism proactively, and creating meaningful research assignments. Now, we will look at the results of our efforts, the student work itself, for studying student work gives us a lens through which we can evaluate our instructional success and identify areas for improvement.

To prepare for collegial discussions about our students’ work, we are asking each teacher to assemble a portfolio of student work.  We will use this material to find out how we are doing, to ground grade level dialogue about expectations and instruction, and to provide material for cross-curricular conversation about how we can support one another’s efforts.

Please have your portfolio ready for your mid-year professional goals update deadline (January ?, 2004) so that we may use this material in the second half of the school year.

Please include the following items in your research standard portfolio:

• Reflective cover sheet

• Teacher name, course, grade and level

• When assigned (date and length of project, position in curriculum)

•  Brief summary of project

•  Purpose(s) of and/or goals for this research assignment

•  Overall reactions to student performance (what students did well, what gave them trouble, what you know you would change in both instruction and in assignment next time)

•  Concerns to be addressed during an examining student work protocol

• On what would you like your colleagues to focus? 

•  What question(s) do you have about the performance/assignment/assessment? 

• What ongoing concerns do you have about your students’ research performance

• Assignment sheet

• Rubric

• Any other handouts given to students for this project

• Samples of graded student work (1 sample of each)

• Advanced

• Proficient

• Basic or Below Basic

Drafted by Carol Rohrbach, Chair Language Arts Department, Springfield Township School District

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