Representativeness, Rubrics, and Relevance

The three challenges to validity when using portfolios as assessments are representativeness, rubrics, and relevance.

The first of these challenges is representativeness requires precise expectations and clear directions without ambiguity followed through with several varieties of different testing methods and result measurements techniques. In additions to these measurements, representativenss requires some sort of model for students to be able to observe and connect with the requirements, for example, a sample of how a measurement would appear as a final response. More clearly, you want something concrete and finished to show as an example of what is to be expected for the assignment included in the portfolio to add to the clarity and defined prospects. This allows for students to have examples within the portfolios, as to keep them on the track of the assignment, while still expecting high quality and original responses from students. This can also help to avoid time being spent doing assignments in a misunderstood fashion, as a result from wording that may have seemed elusive in description or to complicated. With concrete examples, students have a blue print to follow in addition to wordy instruction interpretations. This will save time for the educators and the students and avoid simple misunderstandings that may lead to alternative outcomes due to specific individuals analysis’ and singular understanding.

The next of the three challenges, are rubrics, which literally call for some sort of framework to represent a scoring technique to track students measurements through out a course, and this is in order to keep students on the right track towards the same outcomes. The rubrics also allow for students and educators to follow along through a lesson while recognizing peaks and dips in different point measurements. For starters, this method of keeping track periodically of scoring through the course of a distinguished portfolio will in the long run save educators the time and tediousness it takes to attain grade levels at the courses ending. This allows the students, in addition to the educators, to gage their own progress or failure, and monitor different changes through the entire process of the course. All students and educators involved will have the advantage of knowing when and how and where they need to work towards bettering their own personal scores. With a well developed rubric, individuals are going to be able to identify early where improvements are necessary and where strengths are defined. This variety of scoring methods and measurements through portfolios allows for accuracy and fairness and duration effectiveness of different measures. With rubrics, teachers standards can be clearly defined from the starting point, giving all students fair and timely opportunities to achieve what is expected from the teacher. This removes potential biases and ensures fair and equal opportunities for all students and teachers.

The third and final challenge for attaining validity through portfolio assessments is relevance. Relevance requires the educators expectations to stay inline with stated expectations outlined in portfolio, and for those expectations to be in reasonable alignment with the age category the portfolio is designed towards. Relevance is not just related to the materials within a portfolio, but also the prospects for the portfolio must be congruent with the age category and measure without being beyond the reach of certain age categories or levels. The clarity expressed through relevance ensure the students with what they are expected to do, without drawing them into side tracks of confusion where they are unnecessarily overachieving or doing unconnected work that may be both distracting and waste of time for the student and the educator. In other words, what the portfolio assessments should measure should be contained to specific areas of academia, and not left up to interpretations or fluxuations. The relevance simplifies measures and allows them to be contained to specific and defined proposals, ensuring clear, successful, and timely assessments