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25 Writing Portfolio Examples (PDF & Other Formats) + Useful Portfolio Tips

Are you struggling to create the perfect writing portfolio? Here are 25 writing portfolio examples + 7 useful tips to make it happen!

Protim Bhaumik

Director, Content Marketing

Written by Protim Bhaumik , edited by Shreya Bose , reviewed by Eric Hauch .

2. Dec 2022 , updated 8. Feb 2024

Looking to create a writing portfolio? Curious how to do that without futzing with a website builder for days? We’ve been there.

We know that building a writing portfolio is hard — questions like what you should include, where you should host it, and how to effectively create something that gets you work, need answering! To that end, we've put together a list of 25 writing portfolio examples from our customer base that can inspire you as you make your own and included their tips on how they use Authory. (This is a collection of amazing writers, top journalists, and more.)

I also flagged examples that include PDFs because this type of content is notoriously clunky to upload in some website builders. Some clients and employers ask for PDFs, and building that into a portfolio website can be tricky. So, we'll cover how to do that by showing you 5 PDF writing portfolio examples and then 20 regular writing portfolio examples.

5 Writing portfolio examples in PDF format

When you want to save your writing samples, many people start by downloading a PDF that’s saved in a folder and then sometimes, maybe, once a month/year/panic attack, uploaded to a website. It’s a pain to constantly upload your writing samples, but it’s also risky. There’s always the potential your work is edited or removed before you think to save it.

With that in mind, we built Authory. We search the internet for your content and automatically add it to your website. However, we also make it easy to upload existing PDFs you might have.

Here’s how you can do it:

Here are a few examples of how it looks and advice from our customers on building a smart portfolio.

1. Sarah Sparks

Sarah is an advocate, consultant and writer.

For Sarah, Authory is “easy to use and I like how it aggregates media links before I do sometimes.”

That’s our goal. We automatically collect and back up your work so you don’t have to.  

Sarah’s tip: Just make it easy to navigate - one of the reasons I like Authory. One of the easiest ways to do this is by creating collections.

For example, Sarah’s collections include “legal” “social justice” “Indigenous” and “opinion.” Collections make it easy to categorize your content and then send specific collections to editors and publications when you’re asked for writing samples. You can watch a video on creating collections here.

Sarah Sparks' PDF portfolio.

Here are a few additional PDF portfolio examples that you can review.

2. Alex Hargrave

Alex Hargrave's PDF portfolio

You’ll notice that Alex has two collection examples; education and COVID-19.

3. Kevin Johnston

Kevin Johnston's PDF portfolio.

4. Kerry Sunderland

Kerry Sunderland's PDF portfolio.

5. Urvashi Aneja

Urvashi Aneja's PDF portfolio.

20 Writing portfolio examples in other formats

Besides PDF focused portfolios, we pulled examples of other portfolios and tips for how our expert customers are adapting them to make the best use of them.

Authory is a great additional branding tool

For many people, they have an Authory account to collect their work samples in addition to other branding tools.

1. Brian Clegg

Brian is a science writer with over 40 (fourty!) books in print.

Brian’s Authory site isn’t his only site. It works in addition to his other properties and supports his other online properties. When you google Brian, you’ll find all of these properties. Of note, it’s also possible to integrate an Authory portfolio into an existing online portfolio builder like Wix or SquareSpace.

But why bother? Brian uses Authory to “make my online writing easily available to my book readers and to support my book review site www.popularscience.co.uk .” And with our automatic tools, it takes little time to create this additional homebase for readers.

For Brian, Authory also collects his work, saves it, and he distributes it in a newsletter. It automates and does a lot of work quickly.

Brian Clegg's writing portfolio.

2. Brandon Hill

Brandon is a multimedia journalist covering music and culture, public policy, mental health, the labor movement and social inequality.

“Authory is a great resource for freelancer writers in more ways than you would expect. By automatically updating and feeding your work into a newsletter, it both saves the time and frustration of managing a website and makes for more reliable one to one connections with your audience than social media. Also, by creating automatic pdf back-ups of your publications, you’ll never loose a portfolio piece,” he said.

Like many people in this list, he’s thoughtful about his categories and collections.

“Include some pretty specific categories to lesson the time an employers spends looking at content that might not be relevant to them,” he said.

Brandon Hill's writing portfolio.

3. Scott Matthewman

Scott is a theater critic who is frequently writing reviews. It can be quite a pain to keep these recorded and organized.

“I review over 100 theatre shows a year for various online publications. Authory’s automated tools gives me a single URL where all those reviews can live, hassle-free,” Scott said.

You’ll notice that Scott’s profile shares collections.

“[Authory’s] been useful to promote my reviews to a wider audience on social media. At the end of last year I built a dedicated collection of my 20 favourite reviews for 2022, which was so easy to do and then link to from everywhere.”

Scott Matthewman's writing portfolio.

Use Authory and never worry your work will disappear

4. Tabitha Potts

Tabitha is a published writer with several short stories in print anthologies as well as online.

She uses Authory to share her work with “potential employers, literary agents or publishers (my creative writing, book reviews and journalism are all there).”

The big reason she recommends using Authory is to avoid the situation where your content might be lost and because much of the work is done for you automatically.

And of course it makes it easy to showcase your work.

“I share my Authory profile with every new and potential new client so they can sort and view my published work by category,” she told us.

Tabitha Potts' writing portfolio.

5. Diana Rosen

Diana is an essayist, flash fiction writer, and poet. For her, Authory is “an elaborate business card.”

Her advice is simple: When capturing published work, review thoroughly to avoid duplication or (Egads!) errors.

Diana Rosen's writing portfolio.

Create collections to share what’s relevant

When you’re sharing your work, with an editor, employer, or even just another writer, you don’t always want to share all of your work. It’s key to create and categorize your work by niche or category. You can create collections that make this very easy and share only specific pieces of content with certain people.

6. Carrie Cousins

Carrie  has 15 years of experience in media, design, and content marketing and is a freelance writer and designer.

We asked her for advice for other portfolio builders.

“Think about ways to group content that showcases specific niches that you work in or want to work in. It can really help make sharing and getting new work a lot easier,” Carrie said.

That’s easy to do with Authory’s collection tools. It’s easy to categorize content, give it a label, and share just this grouping with editors.

Carrie Cousins' writing portfolio.

7. Stephanie Bernaba

Stephanie is a writer, multimedia journalist, and photographer.

This is easy to do with our collections feature. We want to make it easy for you to organize your work and send exactly what you need to editors so you can land the gig.

Stephanie had a bit of advice, too.

“Communicate your passion with your header. Make your headline impactful but succinct. Lastly, arrange your work into easily-searchable categories,” she said.

Stephanie Bernaba's writing portfolio.

8. David Worsfold

David is a journalist and author, specialising in finance and insurance

You’ll notice that his portfolio uses the collection feature, too.

“By making it easy to share my work. The collections help showcase writing on specific topics,” he said.

Of course, be thoughtful with your categories.

“Think about the audiences you want to reach and organise your work accordingly,” he mentioned.

David Worsfold's writing portfolio.

9. Kathy Parker

Kathy Parker's writing portfolio.

10. Geraldine Brook

Geraldine Brook's writing portfolio.

11. Pam Moore

Pam Moore's writing portfolio.

12. Mary Ann Gwinn

Mary Ann Gwinn's writing portfolio.

13. Simon Denyer

Simon Denyer's writing portfolio.

14. Jarrod Kimber

Jarrod Kimber's writing portfolio.

15. Carrie Back

Carrie Back's writing portfolio.

16. Crystal Housman

Crystal Housman's writing portfolio.

17. Steven Levy

Steven Levy's writing portfolio.

18. Carin Marais

Carin Marais' writing portfolio.

19. Rosanne Barrett

Rosanne Barrett's writing portfolio.

20. Dan Rosenbaum

Dan Rosenbaum's writing portfolio.

What your takeaways should be from these writing portfolio examples

What a writer portfolio is, and why you need a writing portfolio.

A writing portfolio is a collection of your best (and possibly all) writing samples put together on a website so that potential clients and employers can make a "buying" decision — in essence, all the information that they may need to engage you for your writing services.

An online writing portfolio can also do wonders for your personal branding if managed well. So, in a word, your portfolio is a single place through which you can source work.

Curating the perfect set of writing samples for your portfolio

It's important to figure out what kind of writer you are and the type of writing work you're looking for. This process will inform the writing samples that you'll highlight in your writing portfolio.

Remember, writers come in all shapes and sizes (literally!), and you could be a content writer, copywriter, novelist, author, non-fiction writer, poet, journalist, and more... the list is practically endless.

With that in mind, it's essential that you curate the content on your writing portfolio with examples that will impress upon readers your specific set (and type) of writing skills so that they can make an informed decision when hiring you.

To that end, if you feel that you don't have a good set of writing samples to upload to your portfolio, then it might be best to get writing!

To help you build out your writing portfolio, I've put together a small set of ideas/resources that I turn to for inspiration, support, and general diversion:

• Subreddits like r/writingpromts, r/thedailyprompt, and r/promptoftheday are excellent for trying out amateur storytelling.
• Other subreddits like r/writing, r/freelancewriters, r/keepwriting, r/writers, r/selfpublish, r/blogging, r/copywriting, r/technicalwriting, r/wordcount, r/writingmotivation, offer up a plethora of options for3 you to explore as writer.
• To find work, subreddits like r/hireawriter, r/forhire, r/b2bforhire, r/writersforhire, r/jobbit, and r/writingopportunities can be a source for work if you're lucky.
• What's more in your control is writing for your personal social media accounts to build up that personal brand.
• You could also provide your services for free or reduced rates to friends and family who run a business — this can be for their social media accounts or even their websites.
• Form a writing group with a friend — I have a weekly writing meetup with a close friend, and this can be an online meetup — my friend is half a planet away!
• Write about what you know: everyone knows something and has a lot to offer, even if it's a personal experience. For example, when I am stuck, I write about content marketing and SEO — I don't publish these pieces necessarily, but they're great for getting the juices flowing. That said, I could post them in my writing portfolio.

Seven tips for creating the ideal writing portfolio website based on the writing portfolio examples above

The writing portfolio examples above should give you a great idea of what a writing portfolio must look like, and the various ways other writers choose to exhibit their work.

We've also gone over why you need a writing portfolio and how you can create a few writing samples in case you feel the need to.

Now, let's get down to how you should create a writing portfolio website. We'll go over the best and most efficient ways to go about creating it.

1. Make your website more organized for simpler navigation.

It's vital to organize your online writing portfolio in a way that's easy for your readers to follow. Place your top projects front and center for simple accessibility. Note: what the ideal projects are may differ from client to client. So, suppose you divide your work into carefully curated collections with different URLs. In that case, that specific URL that contains projects pertaining to that particular client can be shared with them.

2. The "correct" number of your projects for easy viewability

The conventional wisdom is that you should limit the number of projects on your online writing portfolio so that a prospective client can make a quick and easy assessment.

I think this is WRONG.

Your portfolio website HAS to have ALL your content. Why? Well, because hiring managers, clients, and employers are looking for both quality AND quantity. Yes, they aren't going to read your entire portfolio website, but they are looking for consistency and experience.

Obviously, if you wrote a terrible article long ago as a young budding freelance writer, don't include it. So, I'll change my caveat to " nearly ALL your content."

Hence, the navigation of your writing portfolio becomes super important. Remember how I spoke about dividing your work into collections? Well, that is a must if you're including a ton of content. Split it by topic, type, publication, etc., and then share the correct URL with your prospect. Let them begin their journey through your writing portfolio from a starting point that you have determined for them.

Place your contact information in an easy-to-find spot so that when a prospect is satisfied with your writing, they can contact you immediately.

3. Imagery for better conversion rates

Human beings positively respond to visual stimuli, especially faces, which means if you're able to include graphics in your writing sample, you have a better chance of converting your readers.

4. Write case studies to exhibit results

If you have the bandwidth to do so, then you should take some time to write case studies for the work that you have done. A simple format to follow for writing case studies is as follows:

• Start with the results: usually exhibited in the form of "increase X by Y." So, for example, I could say I increased traffic to the blog by 11X.
• Then outline the problems and challenges that the client was facing before you joined the project.
• Next, explain how you solved those problems with your writing, your work, and general professionalism.
• And finally, round it off by digging into the details of the results you achieved a bit more and touch upon how the client is doing now.

5. Add social proof to lend credibility to your work

Unfortunately, writing is a creative art, and there are always critics. If you can get a past client to vouch for you and your writing, then that social proof can stand you in good stead when soliciting even more work. Add all the social proof (read: testimonials) you can in your writing portfolio to bump up that conversion rate.

If you have done work for friends and family, this would be a great place to begin hunting for testimonials.

6. Present your contact info in an easily accessible place

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating because it's so important. The whole point of having a writer's portfolio is to get work. If people cannot contact you or can't find your contact details, that will severely affect your chances of getting new projects. Social media handles will do if you're uncomfortable with sharing your email address or phone number publicly.

7. Use a website builder for writers like Authory to create your portfolio quickly and back up your work

All of the tips here are excellent (if I say so myself!), but that said, creating a writer's portfolio is a lot of work !

So, leaving the best for last: my final piece of advice is to use a portfolio website builder so that you can cut down the time to build one.

A couple of major issues that writers face are:

• Updating their writing portfolios when they write new content, especially when creating a portfolio from scratch, takes effort. So, in essence, most writing portfolios are out-of-date.
• And writers also lose access to their work when websites go down, and content gets re-bylined, etc.

That's why a service like Authory is perfect for writers worldwide. With Authory, you get a self-updating portfolio plus a full auto-updating backup of ALL your content. It's super simple to set up your Authory portfolio:

• Sign up for Authory for free !
• Add your sources, i.e., all the places where you've published content on the web. Authory will automatically find your bylined content from these sources and import it into your Authory account.
• Build a collection from the collection tab: click "+ Create collection" and follow the instructions.
• Then go to the portfolio tab : go to the "Content" tab on the left menu and add the collection you just created.
• And then, toggle your portfolio on from the "Portfolio" tab on the left menu, and check out your portfolio!

And now you'll have a self-updating portfolio that also automatically backs up all your content!

To see more writing portfolio examples, check out our other collection :

• Content Marketers
• Journalists

Protim is a startup founder & marketer with over a decade of experience in content marketing, content writing, SEO, and more. He loves dogs, D&D, and music!

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What is a Portfolio?

A “portfolio” is a selection of student work that they have chosen and evaluated as their best work, or as representative of their development over time. By making students responsible for collecting, organizing, drafting, revising, proofreading, and/or reflecting on their work, portfolio assignments engage them in the learning process and afford them an opportunity to share with the instructor their own reasons for investing in the project of the course.

Portfolios are especially common in the arts and for courses in which students conduct a range of writing assignments. (“ Exam wrappers ,” increasingly common in STEM fields, might also be considered a form of portfolio.) Portfolios can be assigned for semester-long courses, or for longer term capstones like certificate programs, across a range of fields.

Why use Portfolios?

Portfolios can be assigned as an alternative to a traditional final exam or paper, and can be especially effective at meeting some or all of the following goals:

• encouraging student agency;
• generating insights into each student’s engagement in their own learning;
• prompting students to reflect on and understand understand their own development over the course;
• inspiring students to identify future goals for continued learning beyond the course;
• providing students the opportunity to select and develop work that they can use beyond the classroom, such as samples for graduate school applications or future employers.

“Portfolio culture” honors both processes and products, and encourages students to prepare materials for the job market / interviews, by encouraging a mindset of professionalism, rather than an “assignment mindset.” Portfolios encourage students to reflect on the amount of work they’ve accomplished over the course of a semester, and ideally, to learn about themselves and their own learning strategies as much as they’re learning new content/skills.

What does a Portfolio contain?

A portfolio typically includes three key components:

• Samples of student work distributed across the term
• Reflections on the work samples
• A professional re-presentation of the work samples
• Samples of Work
• Reflections
• Re-presentation

Work samples can be chosen to:

• represent the students’ best work (potentially incorporating revisions of previous work)
• display an array and/or mastery of skills, such as drawing, digital media, music, language fluency, coding, etc.
• Demonstrate growth over the course of the semester

Depending on the needs of the course, the selection might include essays, interviews, charts, inventories, diaries, tests, or artwork. These samples can vary based on content, format, length, or style of writing or research. The instructor may give specific requirements for the type of work, or it may be selected entirely by the student. For instance, for a writing class, the instructor might stipulate that the portfolio ought to include at least one persuasive piece (in which the main purpose is to agree or disagree with a public concern), and one source-based piece (in which the main purpose is to respond to a primary source).

Some portfolio assignments incorporate the requirement or opportunity to revise prior work. In some circumstances, the opportunity to incorporate instructor feedback can help reinforce learning goals and allow students to take their own work to the next level. In other circumstances, including rough drafts or early-semester work can provide the student with the opportunity to reflect on their early work from the position of greater mastery, and allow them to see their own growth over the semester.

The key self-reflexive element of a portfolio is that it contains a reflection on the work by the student: without the reflection it is just a collection of assignments. The reflection is an opportunity to convey a philosophy, methods, and goals, and identify strengths as a writer or learner.

Each piece might be accompanied by a reflection, or they can be summarized in a “Dear Reader”-style cover letter, with the artifacts as more of an appendix. This letter might contain:

• What readers can expect to encounter in the portfolio
• A rationale for the documents included
• A description of the variety of strategies / methods / theories / skills utilized in the works included
• Connections drawn between the assignments
• Connections drawn between the assignments and the content/skills of the class
• A reflection on what the student is most proud of, and why: did they experiment with new theories? Did they push themselves to try new styles or methods?
• What the student was thinking when they created the artifact, and what impact did it have on their learning? (Questions here might include: What would you do the same or differently next time? How did specific moments in the assignment help you recognize that you were making improvement or on the right track?) This kind of reflective action involves an examination of their past work and the impact that it had in order to synthesize how it might be refined for a better outcome in the future
• Evidence for how it aligns with assignment objectives or class goals
• Moments of surprise or moments corroborating earlier intuitions

Finally, portfolios usually incorporate some sort of professional presentation—what would in another context be a physical portfolio. In other words, it is not merely the resubmission of the components in their original form, but rather an intentional re-presentation of them so as to make an argument about their relationship to each other. Tangible portfolios might take the form of a binder or book; digital portfolios might be collated into a website or slideshow. There could be a visual/graphic design component that could “package,” or “brand” the material to tie it all together, and/or a table of contents, to show how the components fit together. Giving students the opportunity to create a professional package with visual / non-textual material can encourage them to connect with it on a more personal level, and which might allow them to understand their own work in new ways. The act of “publishing” their work can also give it value.

What is an Exam Wrapper?

An exam wrapper (or paper wrapper) is an activity or document that “wraps around” an exam. Similar to portfolios, they are used to enhance student metacognition and self-awareness of their own strategies for study and performance. Common questions that might be asked in an exam wrapper include:

• How did you study for this exam? What strategies did you use to prepare, and which seemed most effective?
• Did these study strategies differ from your preparation for the last exam? Did these changes effect your performance?
• On which aspects of this exam did you perform well?
• Are there patterns to your errors that you can address in future preparation?
• Name at least three things you plan to do differently in your preparation for the next exam. (For example, will you spend more time, change a study habit, or add a new skill?)

How are Portfolios Assessed?

Because of the open-ended nature of work that could be produced across portfolios, it is important to provide clarity about what is expected. Explicit instructions are necessary to avoid student uncertainty about what to include in their own portfolios. Periodic check-ins between student and instructor could alleviate student uncertainty. Students could be organized into pairs or groups, and could thought partners for students working on assembling and explaining their work.

Because of the potential variability between portfolios, a clear grading rubric is key to students understanding how their own work will be assessed. While the precise assessment scheme will depend on the course learning objectives, a rubric might include:

Selection of work

• Shows a variety of work (for example, in different genres or at different stages of drafting)
• Shows development / growth / moving up Bloom’s taxonomy
• Shows clarity / concision of writing

Reflection: demonstrates understanding of course skills

• Shows awareness of and ability to communicate development / growth

Professionalization: has an organizational structure, which is carried out consistently over the project

• Shows engagement with presentation style: includes visual or graphic components that convey a polished professional finish, an overall “brand”
• Is adapted to audience

Portfolios by definition contain individual parts that are organized into a whole, and these parts are themselves coming together at different stages of the assignment. As a result, assessment itself might take place at different stages—including lower-stakes formative feedback—with rubrics that are tailored to the individual parts and/or the final submission.

For more information...

University of Hawai’i at Mānoa: Using Portfolios in Program Assessment

The University of Arizona, Tucson: The Use of Portfolio Assessment in Evaluation

Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center, Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation: Exam Wrappers

Indiana University Bloomington, Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning: Help Students Learn to Take Exams with Exam Wrappers

J.E. Sharp, “ Using Portfolios in the Classroom .” Proceedings Frontiers in Education 27th Annual Conference. 1997.

Crystal Kwan and Camilla Kin Ming Lo, “ Evaluating the Portfolio as a Social Work Capstone Project A Case Study in Hong Kong .” Social Work Education 42, no. 1. April 2023: 145-160.

Betty McDonald, “ Portfolio Assessment: Direct from the Classroom .” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 37, no 3, May 2012, 335-347.

J. L. Ray, “ Industry-Academic Partnerships for Successful Capstone Projects .” 33rd Annual Frontiers in Education, 2003.

David R. Schachter and Deena Schwartz. “ The Value of Capstone Projects to Participating Client Agencies .” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 15:4 (2009), 445-462.

John Zubizarreta, The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning . Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Elana Michelson, Alan Mandell, eds., Portfolio Development and the Assessment of Prior Learning: Perspectives, Models, and Practices . Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2004.

• Learner-Centered Design
• Putting Evidence at the Center
• What Should Students Learn?
• Start with the Capstone
• How to Write an Effective Assignment
• Scaffolding: Using Frequency and Sequencing Intentionally
• Curating Content: The Virtue of Modules
• Syllabus Design
• Catalogue Materials
• Making a Course Presentation Video
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• In the Classroom
• Getting Feedback
• Equitable & Inclusive Teaching
• Advising and Mentoring
• Teaching and Your Career
• Teaching Remotely
• Tools and Platforms
• The Science of Learning
• Bok Publications
• Other Resources Around Campus

Digital portfolio for students – tips and examples

In the context of blended learning and digital classrooms, there’s a growing number of schools that encourage students to build a digital portfolio . There are many ways to do that and various tools that can be used to build a great digital portfolio for students.

Student portfolio definition

A student portfolio is a collection of academic assignments, projects, revisions, and work samples that stretch over a designated period of time, belonging to one student. It may also contain student self-assessments and reflections on their own work.

Why make a student portfolio

There are 4 different reasons why you might be required to make a student portfolio: (1) the teacher needs it to evaluate your learning progress by comparing early work to later work; (2) the teacher may use it to review your work in order to determine whether you have met the established learning standards set for your grade level or for graduation; (3) to help you reflect on your academic goals and progress; (4) to create an archive that compiles your most important school projects and academic work.

A teacher might require students to make portfolios for any or for all of the reasons above. In addition to meeting teachers’ requirements, older students might want to build a portfolio for themselves to help them later in their careers. There are many arguments for making a portfolio because it can help a student greatly.

Importance of portfolio for students

Now let’s talk about the importance of portfolios for students. Even though making a portfolio might seem tedious, the process is very rewarding. You’ll thank yourself later for making it. It will help you pick up some important skills and you will feel proud when you will look back on all your hard work.

• Opportunity to track and chart growth
• Increased motivation
• Deeper learning and quality work
• Habits of lifelong learning – a portfolio requires planning and keeping records which are great habits
• Promotes reflection on what to learn and how to learn
• Showcase around a set of learning outcomes – an achievement documentation system
• Opportunity to demonstrate particular competencies
• Ownership, responsibility, involvement in own learning
• Improves communication between parents and teachers
• Learn to auto-evaluate and critique

How should a portfolio be organized

There are many ways you can make a digital portfolio and each format is structured differently. Some of the most used formats for student portfolios are blogs, online journals, digital archives, websites, and notebooks. We advise you to think about all the benefits and limitations for each portfolio type and choose the one that works best for you and for your needs. For instance, a digital portfolio is more suitable if you want to showcase your online certifications like the OSHA international certification .

Regardless of the support that you’ve chosen for your portfolio, there are some guidelines on how it should be organized. Usually, the teacher will tell you what should be included in the portfolio, how it should be organized, and how it will be evaluated. Pay attention to these requirements and specifications because you need to meet these standards to get a good grade.

Here are some of the criteria that will surely be taken into consideration during the evaluation:

• Organization – Your portfolio should be comprised of an intro/ summary, a table of contents, work samples (organized into chapters) and a conclusion. You must have a logical explanation for the order in which your portfolio work is presented. Typically you may want to stick with a chronological order, but sometimes other criteria is more important.
• Completeness – Make a checklist with all the items that have to be included in your portfolio. Check and double check your list to avoid omitting important required elements
• Neatness – Pay attention to typos, spelling and formatting, because a neat, organized-looking portfolio will impress your teacher. Being organized and neat will help you in future projects beyond high school, or college.
• Visual appeal – Include images, charts and other interesting materials. For added visual appeal, make your portfolio with Flipsnack.
• Evidence of growth – Your teacher may compare some of your early work to later work, so make sure you devote more time in the very last projects and show off the information that you picked up
• Variety of artifacts and supporting materials – An ambitious student will always go above and beyond the minimum requirements for a portfolio. Show interest in the assignment by adding all sorts of relevant support materials to your portfolio.

Student portfolio websites

There are many website portfolio builders online, so you’ll have plenty of options if you want to present your portfolio in a website format. Some of the most known website builders are Wix , Squarespace , Weebly , IMcreator or Pixpa which offers lots of student portfolio website templates that can easily be customized to anyone’s needs. Portfoliogen is another online tool developed specifically for student portfolio websites. Another popular option is Bulbapp , which can be used to curate and create, share and showcase materials for school projects. Google Drive – If you need an online platform that can be used to keep your work private, organized into folders, you might consider using Google Drive and all the other Google apps made for collaboration. Another similar option (but less popular) would be Dropbox or Evernote . Google Sites – Many teachers use Google Sites to create a class-oriented site where students can collaborate and share files. To start a blog -style portfolio, try Blogger , WordPress , or some other blogging platform. If you want your student portfolio to look truly striking, try Flipsnack !

Student portfolio examples and samples

If you want to make a portfolio but don’t know where to start, perhaps you should take a look at these student portfolio examples in various formats: PDFs, websites, Google Sites, and magazines.

College portfolio examples

Take a look at this single-topic college portfolio in PDF format, made by 2 students. The portfolio compiles 3 studies on stereotype threats.

This student portfolio is made up of different projects made by Madelaine, a university undergraduate who specializes in landscape architecture .

High school portfolio

The following portfolio is presented as a Google Site . You can switch between projects by checking the menu on the left.

This student is building a high school portfolio that features all the most notable projects for each class, year by year.

How about a student’s art portfolio? We like this one created by Elizabeth Yuan .

Even young students can make portfolios. Here’s an example of a 4th grade writing portfolio.

Elementary student portfolio examples

Student portfolio samples.

And here are 2 more student portfolio samples. The first one is made in Bulbapp , while the second one was created with Flipsnack .

Also, here’s a video that you can check out to see how a girl designed her art school portfolio and maybe get some inspiration.

Flipsnack for student portfolios

Earlier we mentioned Flipsnack, but we didn’t fully explain why it would be such a great fit for your student portfolio. Let’s start by saying that the format is just perfect for portfolios because it looks like a digital magazine/ notebook, so it’s very easy to browse through. The navigation is very intuitive, making it easy for anyone to find a particular chapter or project from within the portfolio. Flipsnack supports internal linking, so you can link to certain pages from the table of contents.

The tool is so easy to use that anyone can easily create, edit and update his portfolio. You can make your portfolio by uploading PDFs or you can make your project page by page in our editor. You can make unlimited updates!

By using Flipsnack you will make your projects look polished and professional.

[…] (2017, October, 24). Digital portfolio for students – tips and examples. FLIPSNACKBLOG. Retrieved from https://blog.flipsnack.com/digital-portfolio-students/ […]

it is very good and useful thank you

Thank you nick!

Love this im a student and we are learning how to make a portfolio this helps a lot

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1.8 Portfolio: Tracing Writing Development

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Reflect on the development of composing processes.
• Reflect on how those composing processes affect your work.

The Portfolio: And So It Begins . . .

In simplest terms, a writing portfolio is a collection of your writing contained within a single binder or folder. This writing may have been done over a number of weeks, months, or even years. It may be organized chronologically, thematically, or according to quality. A private writing portfolio may contain writing that you wish to keep only for yourself. In this case, you decide what is in it and what it looks like. However, a writing portfolio assigned for a class will contain writing to be shared with an audience to demonstrate the growth of your writing and reasoning abilities. One kind of writing portfolio, accumulated during a college course, presents a record of your work over a semester, and your instructor may be use it to assign a grade. Another type of portfolio presents a condensed, edited story of your semester’s progress in a more narrative form.

The most common type of portfolio assigned in a writing course combines the cumulative work collected over the semester, plus a cover letter in which you explain the nature and value of these papers. Sometimes you will be asked to assign yourself a grade on the basis of your own assessment. The following suggestions may help you prepare a course portfolio:

• Make your portfolio speak for you. If your course portfolio is clean, complete, and carefully organized, that is how it will be judged. If it is unique, colorful, creative, and imaginative, that, too, is how it will be judged. Similarly, your folder will be judged more critically if it is messy, incomplete, and haphazardly put together. Before giving your portfolio to somebody else for evaluation, consider whether it reflects how you want to be presented.
• Include exactly what is asked for. If an instructor wants three finished papers and a dozen sample journal entries, that is the minimum your course portfolio should contain. Sometimes you can include more than what is asked for, but never include less.
• Add supplemental material judiciously. Course portfolios are among the most flexible means of presenting yourself. If you believe that supplemental writing will show you in a better light, include that too, but only after the required material. If you include extra material, attach a memo to explain why it is there and what you think it adds to your portfolio. Supplemental writing might include journals, letters, sketches, or diagrams that suggest other useful dimensions of your thinking.
• Include perfect final drafts. At least make them as close to perfect as you can. Show that your own standard for finished work is high. Check spelling, grammar, citation, formatting, and font sizes and types. You should go over your work carefully and be able to find the smallest errors. In addition, if you are asked for a hard copy of your portfolio, final drafts should be double-spaced and printed on only one side of high-quality paper, unless another format is requested. And, of course, your work should be carefully proofread and should follow the language and genre conventions appropriate to the task.
• Demonstrate growth. This is a tall order, but course portfolios, unlike most other assessment instruments, can show positive change. The primary value of portfolios in writing classes is that they allow you to demonstrate how a finished paper came into being. Consequently, instructors frequently ask for early drafts to be attached to final drafts of each paper, the most recent on top, so they can see how you followed revision suggestions, how much effort you invested, how many drafts you wrote, and how often you took risks and tried to improve. To build such a record of your work, make sure the date of every draft is clearly marked on each one, and keep it in a safe place (and backed up electronically).
• Demonstrate work in progress. Course portfolios allow writers to present partially finished work that suggests future directions and intentions. Both instructors and potential employers may find such preliminary drafts or outlines as valuable as some of your finished work. When you include a tentative draft, be sure to attach a memo or note explaining why you still believe it has merit and in which direction you plan to take your next revisions.
• Attach a table of contents. For portfolios containing more than three papers, attach a separate table of contents. For those containing only a few papers, embed your table of contents in the cover letter.
• Chronological order : Writing is arranged in order, beginning with the first week of class and ending with the last week, with all drafts, papers, journal entries, letters, and such fitting in place according to the date written. Only the cover letter is out of chronological order, appearing at the beginning and serving as an introduction to what follows. This method allows you to show the evolution of growth most clearly, with your latest writing (presumably the best) presented at the end.
• Reverse chronological order : The most recent writing is up front, and the earliest writing at the back. In this instance, the most recent written document—the cover letter—is in place at the beginning of the portfolio. This method features your latest (presumably the best) work up front and allows readers to trace the history of how it got there.
• Best-first order : You place your strongest writing up front and your weakest in back. Organizing a portfolio this way suggests that the work you consider strongest should count most heavily in evaluating the semester’s work.

With each completed chapter in this textbook, you will add to this portfolio. As you work through the chapters and complete the assignments, save each one on your computer or in the cloud, unless your instructor asks you to print your work and arrange it in a binder. Each assignment becomes an artifact that will form a piece of your portfolio. Depending on your preference or your instructor’s approach, you may write a little about each assignment as you add to the portfolio. As you compile your portfolio, take some time to read the assignments—drafts and finished products—carefully. Undoubtedly, you will see improvement in your writing over a short amount of time. Be sure to make note of this improvement because it will prove useful moving forward.

Reflective Task: The Freedom of Freewriting

As you begin your portfolio with the addition of your critical response, compose an accompanying freewrite , sometimes called a quick write . In this case, you will be responding to your own text—a powerful tool in your intellectual development. To begin, write quickly and without stopping about the process of composing your critical response and the finished product. See where your thoughts go, a process that often helps you clarify your own thoughts about the subject—your own text and its creation. When you freewrite, write to yourself in your own natural style, without worrying about sentence structure, grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The purpose is to help you tie together the ideas from your writing process, your assignment, and other thoughts and experiences in your mind. One future value of freewriting is that the process tends to generate questions at random, capture them, and leave the answering for a later task or assignment. Another bonus of freewriting is that you will build confidence with writing and become more disciplined when you have to write. In other words, the more you write, the more confidence you will have in your voice and your writing.

By now you may have realized that writing, whether on social media platforms or in the classroom, is a conversation. The conversation may take place with yourself (freewriting), with your instructor and classmates (assignment), or with the world (social media). You have learned how people like Selena Gomez and others use simple and effective strategies, such as vulnerability , understanding, analysis, and evaluation, to engage in such conversations. Now adopt these same processes—try them on for size, practice them, and learn to master them. As you move through the remainder of this course and text, compose with intention by keeping in mind the limits and freedoms of a particular defined rhetorical situation.

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Portfolio Checklist

Your sophomore portfolio: some assembly required (batteries not included).

News flash: You have already done over 90% of the work required for your portfolio. Why? Because you will be submitting work you have written for courses during your first six terms. The only new piece of writing is a reflective essay (see #8 below).

Here is a foolproof, step-by-step checklist for assembling Carleton’s sophomore portfolio.

• Find the written work you have done in Carleton courses. This may be as simple as looking through your hard drive or through copies of graded work you have kept. On the other hand, it may involve going through Moodle sites and your e-mail to download material that was submitted digitally; or groping under your bed; or remembering the projects you submitted that were not returned—but of course you backed them up on Google Drive, right?
• Find the assignment descriptions. The syllabus or Moodle may be good places to look for assignments. And do look under the bed again. If you lack an assignment, do your best to describe the assignment as you remember it.
• Read everything. What pieces do you remember most? Why? Is there a particular paper or project that represents you as a writer? In what way(s)? Among your papers, do you see variety of subject matter, style, form, difficulty, and so forth? Sort your work into piles according to your favorite taxonomy, e.g., by discipline; or best to worst in terms of grades or your own satisfaction as a writer; or perhaps by form: critical analysis vs. detailed report vs. policy/position paper, and so forth.
• Refer to the portfolio criteria and find all of the papers that could count for one or more of the rhetorical tasks listed . Some papers may cover 4-5 tasks; others may focus on one. Sort again, choosing examples that fit the criteria best as you understand them. At this point, you may want to involve your adviser or another faculty member in the process, especially if you think you are missing one or more of the required tasks. Showing your options to an experienced faculty reader may help you appreciate features of your work that you had not considered. You may also want to review the portfolio FAQ for answers to common questions.
• Settle on 3-5 papers (totaling 30 pages or fewer) that will cover all of the criteria. Ideally, these papers will also have assignments. If you lack an assignment, do your best to describe the assignment as you remember it. If your batch exceeds the 30-page limit because of figures or bibliographies, that’s OK. Do not omit such material; its absence will confuse readers.
• Feel free to revise your papers. It is not cheating to make improvements on your papers. They have already been graded in the context of specific courses and assignments. Now you have a chance to show them off to a new set of readers, so why not make them as compelling and readable as possible? No educator on the face of the earth would ever hold effective revision against you. Our faculty readers certainly respect such efforts.
• Proofread all of the papers you have chosen. Again, PROOFREAD all of the papers you have chosen and make corrections in the electronic files. It is in your interest to present clean, error-free prose in your portfolio. Readers will appreciate the care you show about your work and the courtesy extended to them.
• Write an essay to introduce your work. Chances are, your faculty readers will not know you personally, nor will they necessarily be familiar with the subject matter of your papers. Think about them as your audience. What do smart, thoughtful, liberally-educated adults need to know to make sense of your work? How can you direct their reading to persuade them that you are a competent Carleton writer who is ready to tackle advanced work in your major? This is not to say that you should deconstruct the very first paper you wrote and argue that you have progressed to an exalted level since then—although this is a common strategy among students. Think carefully and reflectively (it’s called a reflective essay, after all) about the persona you present and make an argument that uses the contents of your portfolio to prove whatever you want to say about yourself and your writing.
• Upload your files, including the reflective essay to the Moodle Writing Portfolio site. You can change files and edit papers right up until the due date or until you click submit .
• Complete the portfolio metadata and research authorization on the Portfolio Summary Page of the Moodle site. This information helps with data entry and informs you on how the College uses student work in research. We appreciate permission from students for use of your work in research, since faculty learn a great deal from your written responses to our assignments. On the Portfolio Summary page of the Moodle site Click Save to save any work in progress. Do not click Submit until your submission is finalized. You will not get the opportunity to revise after you click submit.
• Complete The Portfolio Checklist and Submit.
• Take a breath–your job is done!
• Expect results by the end of summer break. Portfolios are scored over the summer, from roughly mid June-mid August. It takes a week or two from there to process the scores, so students are generally notified of their scores via email near the end of August. Please be patient, but if you have not received your portfolio score by the beginning of fall term (and you submitted your portfolio before the deadline), please email George Cusack ([email protected]), the Writing Across the Curriculum Director.

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9.1: Portfolio Assignment

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EN 111 Final Portfolio

The portfolio is a selection of work that demonstrates your writing abilities and knowledge about writing and critical thinking at the close of EN 111. For the purposes of this class, this assignment will be considered the final.

What goes in the Portfolio?

• Title page (title + optional picture and/or quote)
• Reflective Essay (~2 pages)
• A final (2nd) draft copy of all essays completed during the semester (Experience, Compare/Contrast, Issues) and the prior drafts for all essays.
• Selected Artifacts (2-3)

You should title the portfolio in a way that captures your sense of yourself as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey. You can include a picture and/or quote on the title page as well. A quote can come from anywhere (any text, movie, lyrics, etc.) but should illustrate your perspective about writing and/or critical thinking. You will discuss the significance of your title (picture and quote too if you included them) in your Reflective Essay.

Reflective Essay for Portfolio

The Reflective Essay is a self-assessment that examines the entire body of your work (all of your writing up to this point) rather than a single subject and/or inquiry thread. Your task is to examine, or reflect on , your own writing and situate your observations and interpretations within the context of our discussions about writing and critical thinking skills. The portfolio, in essence, is a presentation—a somewhat persuasive demonstration illustrating how you approached writing and critical thinking before EN 111, and how you see yourself, as a writer and thinker, now, in relation to these same abilities/skills at the close of the course.

What goes in the Reflective Essay?

This essay should be a fairly polished and focused piece of writing that supports its claims and reflections with specific evidence (i.e. cite yourself). It will run ~2 pages in length. All reflective essays should take into account the following, but not necessarily in the order presented here:

• The significance of your title (and picture and quote, if included).
• What you now understand about effective writing and how it is achieved and what the portfolio reveals about your writing and your abilities to think on paper. (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What you now understand about writing and critical inquiry that this portfolio might not reveal. (You may understand more than your portfolio reveals).
• What the portfolio reveals about you as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What challenges you continue to face as writer and critical thinker. (What is hard for you? In what areas have you gotten stronger and more confident? What immediate goals have you set for yourself as you continue to develop as a writer and critical thinker?)
• (Optional) Discuss, document, and evaluate the extent to which you were actively engaged in this class (i.e. determine how much time/effort you put into this course and whether your writing reflects that same time/effort).

You are to include final (2nd) draft copies (at minimum) of all the essays you have written in this course. In including your essays, you will be expected to discuss why you have included them in your Reflective Essay, and explain specifically what they illustrate about you as a writer and critical thinker. As such, I recommend that you discuss how the essays reveal your analytical skills at work—your abilities to develop, examine, and communicate an informed perspective.

Selected Artifacts

I am asking you to include 2-3 artifacts from the course (or outside of EN 111) that are significant to, and reflective of, you in terms of yourself as a writer and critical thinker. You may select anything from your Informal Writing Collection (freewrites, peer exchanges, etc.), your formal writing (part of your essay(s), or parts of them as a sequence from the first draft to the final draft stage) or other texts (a particular paper or assignment from another class you found pertinent to your overall growth).

How Do I Submit It?

You should submit the portfolio, in the dropbox on the preceding page,  as a Word document or a PDF so that I may open it in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Portfolio Assignment. Authored by : Jason Brown. Provided by : Herkimer College. Project : AtD OER Course. License : CC BY: Attribution

How to Create an ePortfolio

Creating an eportfolio, the main steps and "how to" of starting your eportfolio, a guide for students: the first steps.

Since there are many types of ePortfolios, it can be difficult to know where to start. This page is specifically to help students and creators identify questions, audiences, and considerations for getting started. 

Step 1: Identify What Type of ePortfolio You are Creating

There are many different types of ePortfolios. Some of the main ones include:

Learning ePortfolios:  These portfolios illustrate the process of learning. The audience is typically teachers and/or supervisors, peers, and self. It is not about including your  best  work or work that received an A+ -- instead, these ePortfolios highlight the process of learning. Frequently included artifacts are paper drafts, lab reports, reflections, etc. 

Career ePortfolios:  These portfolios are usually a compilation of best work that illustrates professional skills and aligns with the job you are either applying for or want to work in. The audience is typically potential employers. Frequent artifacts included are resumes, professional development, best works, etc.

Showcase ePortfolios:  These portfolios illustrate your best work and showcase particular work for a specific audience. For example, an artist might showcase their best work and reflections on the meaning. Students might also use these in a Capstone Course to illustrate learning throughout a program. Frequent artifacts include: polished work, resumes, contextual information, etc. 

UA Handout on Learning ePortfolios (PDF)

UA Student Engagement and Career Development

Types of ePortfolios (Stony Brook University)

Oftentimes, you might create a hybrid of these ePortfolios but all ePortfolios have the same three components:  artifacts/evidence, contextual information, and digital identity choices.  

Step 2: Collect, Select, Reflect

All ePortfolios include artifacts, contextual information, and digital identity choices. Let's break this down further:

Artifacts:  These are the "evidence" for your ePortfolio and the work you want your audience to engage with to help understand your ideas, skills, etc. Examples include resumes, drafts, teaching materials, etc. You want to make sure you  collect  these artifacts in a place where you can easily find them (i.e. Google Drive, Dropbox, Desktop Folder, etc.). 

Examples of Artifacts for your ePortfolio (PDF)

Contextual Information:  This often includes information about when the artifact was created and the situation it comes from, it helps the audience understand the purpose of the portfolio and materials, and also who you are as the creator. Examples include: an "about me" section with your interest/goals, details about the course you are in and when you took it, the jobs you are applying for, etc. As you  select  your artifacts you want to make sure it fits the context (i.e. the audience, the purpose, the tone, etc). 

Worksheet on Selecting and Contextualizing Artifacts (PDF)

Digital Identity Choices:  These choices include color schemes, pictures, font, and other ways you hope to express your individuality and identity on your portfolio. It is important to keep in mind how you are presenting yourself to your audience and how it is helping you achieve your goals. Digital identity choices encourage you to both  select and reflect  and the context and how you want to present yourself. As you reflect it is important to keep in mind where you've been, where you are, and where you are going. An ePortfolio is an excellent way to trace these steps and parts of the process. 

Worksheet on Identifying Your Digital Identity (PDF)

Worksheets created by Auburn's ePortfolio Initiative

Step 3: Select Your Technology

It is important as you create your ePortfolio to not only have your artifacts, contextual information, and digital identifers but also technology that fits your purpose. Some guiding questions might include:

1) Do I want to be able to access this ePortfolio once I graduate, leave the class, etc.? If so, does the platform allow me to continue accessing it? 

2) Does the platform allow me to upload or create the most important artifacts for my purpose? 

3) Is the platform user friendly? Can I easily understand how to add artifacts and contextual information?  

4) Does it allow me to engage in my digital identifies in ways that help my audience (i.e. can I upload pictures, manipulate color, etc.)

5) Is the platform readable and accessible to my audience (i.e. can I do closed captions, alt-text, etc.)? 

At the University of Arizona we have specific support for  Digication  and  Adobe Spark.  Students also have found Wix, Weebly, and Google Sites useful. Students in General Education will be using Digication due to its ability to follow students beyond their college careers, ability to include universal design features, assessment processes, and more.

UA Digital Learning

IT Accessibility Checklist (Website)

The Portfolio – Culminating Activity (Your Final)

Sample portfolio.

Permission granted by author, who was a former student:  SamplePortfolio

• Sample Portfolio. Authored by : Jason Brown. Provided by : Herkimer College. Project : AtD OER Course. License : CC BY: Attribution

• Faculty and Staff

Assessment and Curriculum Support Center

Using portfolios in program assessment.

On this page:

• What is a portfolio?
• Portfolios as a data-collection method for assessment
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Creating and designing portfolios
• Questions to ask before adopting portfolios
• E-Portfolios
• Links: universities implementing portfolios; online portfolios
• E-portfolio software and review

1. What is a portfolio?

Back to Top

A portfolio is a systematic collection of student work that represents student activities, accomplishments, and achievements over a specific period of time in one or more areas of the curriculum. There are two main types of portfolios:

Showcase Portfolios:  Students select and submit their best work. The showcase portfolio emphasizes the products of learning. Developmental Portfolios : Students select and submit pieces of work that can show evidence of growth or change over time. The growth portfolio emphasizes the process of learning.

STUDENTS’ REFLECTIVE ESSAY: In both types of portfolios, students write reflective essays or introductory memos to the faculty/assessment committee to explain the work and reflect on how the collection demonstrates their accomplishments, explains why they selected the particular examples, and/or describes changes in their knowledge/ability/attitude.

2. Portfolios as a data-collection method for assessment

Portfolios can be created for course assessment as well as program assessment. Although the content may be similar, the assessment process is different.

3. Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of a portfolio

• Enables faculty to assess a set of complex tasks, including interdisciplinary learning and capabilities, with examples of different types of student work.
• Helps faculty identify curriculum gaps, a lack of alignment with outcomes.
• Promotes faculty discussions on student learning, curriculum, pedagogy, and student support services.
• Encourages student reflection on their learning. Students may come to understand what they have and have not learned.
• Provides students with documentation for job applications or applications to graduate school.

Disadvantages of a portfolio

• Faculty time required to prepare the portfolio assignment and assist students as they prepare them. Logistics are challenging.
• Students must retain and compile their own work, usually outside of class. Motivating students to take the portfolio seriously may be difficult.
• Transfer students may have difficulties meeting program-portfolio requirements.
• Storage demands can overwhelm (which is one reason why e-portfolios are chosen).

4. Using portfolios in assessment

TIP: START SMALL. Showcase portfolio : Consider starting with one assignment plus a reflective essay from a senior-level course as a pilot project. A faculty group evaluates the “mini-portfolios” using a rubric. Use the results from the pilot project to guide faculty decisions on adding to or modifying the portfolio process. Developmental portfolio : Consider starting by giving a similar assignment in two sequential courses: e.g., students write a case study in a 300-level course and again in a 400-level course. In the 400-level course, students also write a reflection based on their comparison of the two case studies. A faculty group evaluates the “mini-portfolios” using a rubric. Use the results to guide the faculty members as they modify the portfolio process.

Suggested steps:

• Determine the purpose of the portfolio. Decide how the results of a portfolio evaluation will be used to inform the program.
• Identify the learning outcomes the portfolio will address.Tip: Identify at least 6 course assignments that are aligned with the outcomes the portfolio will address. Note: When planning to implement a portfolio requirement, the program may need to modify activities or outcomes in courses, the program, or the institution.
• Decide what students will include in their portfolio. Portfolios can contain a range of items–plans, reports, essays, resume, checklists, self-assessments, references from employers or supervisors, audio and video clips. In a showcase portfolio, students include work completed near the end of their program. In a developmental portfolio, students include work completed early and late in the program so that development can be judged.Tip: Limit the portfolio to 3-4 pieces of student work and one reflective essay/memo.
• Identify or develop the scoring criteria (e.g., a rubric) to judge the quality of the portfolio.Tip: Include the scoring rubric with the instructions given to students (#6 below).
• Establish standards of performance and examples (e.g., examples of a high, medium, and low scoring portfolio).
• Create student instructions that specify how students collect, select, reflect, format, and submit.Tip: Emphasize to students the purpose of the portfolio and that it is their responsibility to select items that clearly demonstrate mastery of the learning outcomes. Emphasize to faculty that it is their responsibility to help students by explicitly tying course assignments to portfolio requirements.

Collect – Tell students where in the curriculum or co-curricular activities they will produce evidence related to the outcomes being assessed. Select – Ask students to select the evidence. Instruct students to label each piece of evidence according to the learning outcome being demonstrated. Reflect – Give students directions on how to write a one or two-page reflective essay/memo that explains why they selected the particular examples, how the pieces demonstrate their achievement of the program outcomes, and/or how their knowledge/ability/attitude changed. Format –Tell students the format requirements (e.g., type of binder, font and style guide requirements, online submission requirements). Submit – Give submission (and pickup) dates and instructions.

• A faculty group scores the portfolios using the scoring criteria. Use examples of the standards of performance to ensure consistency across scoring sessions and readers.Tip: In large programs, select a random sample of portfolios to score (i.e., do not score every portfolio).
• Share the results and use them to improve the program.

5. Questions to consider before adopting a portfolio requirement

• What is the purpose of the portfolio requirement? To document student learning? Demonstrate student development? Learn about students’ reflections on their learning? Create a document useful to students? Help students grow through personal reflection on their personal goals?
• Will portfolios be showcase or developmental?
• When and how will students be told about the requirement, including what materials they need to collect or to produce for it?
• What are the minimum and maximum lengths or sizes for portfolios?
• Who will decide which materials will be included in portfolios- -faculty or students?
• What elements will be required in the portfolio- -evidence only from courses in the discipline, other types of evidence, evidence directly tied to learning outcomes, previously graded products or clean copies?
• Will students be graded on the portfolios? If so, how and by whom?
• How will the portfolios be assessed to evaluate and improve the program?
• What can be done for students who have inadequate evidence through no fault of their own? (E.g., transfer students)
• What will motivate students to take the portfolio requirement seriously?
• How will the portfolio be submitted–hard copy or electronic copy?
• Who “owns” the portfolios–students or the program/university? If the program/university owns them, how long will the portfolios be retained after the students graduate?
• Who has access to the portfolios and for what purposes?
• How will student privacy and confidentiality be protected?

6. E-portfolios (electronic portfolios)

Traditional portfolios consist of papers in a folder. Electronic or “e-portfolios” consist of documents stored electronically. Electronic portfolios offer rich possibilities for learning and assessment, with the added dimension of technology.

• What about an electronic portfolio is central to the assessment?
• Who is the audience for the portfolio? Will that audience have the hardware, software, skills, time, and inclination to access the portfolio electronically?
• Does the institution have the hardware and software in place to create portfolios electronically? If not, what will it cost and who will install it? Does the institution have the IT/technical staff to support e-portfolios?
• What is the current level of computer skills of the students and faculty members involved in this project? Who will teach them how to use the technology necessary to create and view electronic portfolios?
• Easy to share with multiple readers simultaneously.
• Allows for asynchronous use for both students and faculty.
• Allows for multi-media product submissions.
• Offers search strategies for easy access to materials.
• Makes updating entries easier.
• Creating navigational links may help students see how their experiences interrelate.
• Provides students the opportunity to improve as well as demonstrate their technology skills.
• Allows faculty to remain in touch with students after graduation if the portfolio can become students’ professional portfolio.
• Time is needed to master the software. Students may not have sufficient computer skills to showcase their work properly.
• Faculty and students may be reluctant to learn a new software program.
• Requires IT expertise and support for both students and faculty.
• Cost associated with developing an in-house platform or the purchase of a commercial product may be expensive.
• Cost associated with maintaining portfolio software. Ongoing support and training are necessary.
• An external audience may not have access to proprietary software. Proprietary software may hinder portability.
• Requires large amounts of computer space.
• Privacy and security. Who will have access to the portfolio?

7. Links to universities implementing portfolios

Truman State University:  http://assessment.truman.edu/components/portfolio/

Penn State:  http://portfolio.psu.edu/

University of Denver:  https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/index

8. Electronic portfolio software

Laulima Open Source Portfolio . Laulima has an Open Source Portfolio (OSP) tool option. Contact UH ITS for information about turning on this tool.

List of E-Portfolio Software & Tools .  ePortfolio-related Tools and Technologies  wiki.

Sources Consulted:

• Skidmore College, Assessment at Skidmore College, http://cms.skidmore.edu/assessment/Handbook/portfolio.cfm
• Mary Allen – University of Hawaii at Manoa Spring 2008 Assessment Workshops
• ERIC Digest, Assessment Portfolios (ED447725),  http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/eric_digests/ed447725.pdf
• Portfolio Assessment: Instructional Guide (2nd Ed.),  http://libdr1.ied.edu.hk/pubdata/img00/arch00/link/archive/1/instarh/1921_image.pdf
• Cambridge, B.L., Kahn, S., Tompkins, D.P., Yancey, K.B. (Eds.). (2001).  Electronic portfolios: Emerging practices in student, faculty, and institutional learning . Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education.

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DartWrite Digital Portfolio Project

Dartmouth's home for digital writing portfolios

Portfolio Assignments

In the DartWrite program, students own and control their own portfolio spaces. We expect students to pursue goals we can't fully anticipate, and we know that student creativity with design and content will lead them to exciting and unexpected places.

But there's still a place at Dartmouth for formal assignments that engage with digital portfolios. Faculty can help students extract more from their courses by integrating parts of their teaching and advising with portfolios. Doing so can give students the time and support they need to do the important work of integrating and reflecting on learning experiences.

To that end, this page outlines a few broad assignment archetypes for integrating portfolios into coursework. Further down the page, find considerations for integrating portfolios with the College learning management system, Canvas, and handling site visibility/privacy concerns .

Three kinds of digital portfolio assignments:

Digital portfolios are adaptable tools that extend beyond the boundaries of a single course. We know that faculty meet their course objectives or advising goals in creative and diverse ways. That healthy diversity is impossible to fully predict. Still, we think most portfolio-based assignments fall into three broad categories: reflection , curation , and integrated composition .

1. Reflection

We have good reason to believe that reflection is one of the most powerful learning tools available. When our students reflect on what they learn, they create what educational research has called "deliberate effortful abstractions" of their knowledge, making that knowledge more accessible in future contexts (1).

To harness the power of reflection, faculty often prompt reflection in their classes, formally or informally. Here are just a few ways you might see reflection showing up in dialogue with the portfolios:

• Holistic course reflection ; often assigned at the end of term, course learning reflections ask students to sum up the term's labor and identify key principles or values they want to retain for future use.
• Process log ; usually created around major projects, particularly in the planning or review phases, process logs invite students to record their strategies and game plans, making it possible to step outside of the stresses of the moment to notice patterns across time.
• About me ; typically something that students will want to update periodically, an "About Me" page gives students a chance to craft and revise their identities as students, making connections that reach beyond the boundaries of classes, major or minors, and Dartmouth itself.
• Learning journal ; often an informal or semi-structured practice, learning journals invite students to frequently record their experience, often in preparation for class discussions or a later, holistic course reflection project.

2. Curation

Building a portfolio involves choosing what to include, what experiential artifacts to post, embed, link, or describe in the space. Curating a portfolio means making some conscious choices about how to configure those and frame the artifacts that are included.

Faculty can encourage curation by inviting students to make meaningful choices about what artifacts to post and how to frame them. Here are a few ways faculty can consider adopting portfolio curation as part of a course project:

• Abstracts ; if an abstract isn't a required part of a project, creating one can be a valuable exercise in audience and genre awareness. Faculty can ask students to link to or embed a project file and write an abstract to accompany it. Doing so can help students consciously practice adapting their style and voice, reflect on the meanings and purposes of their projects, and practice an important academic genre.
• Summary for new audiences ; much like an abstract, a project summary can be a way to practice adapting to audience and genre. Faculty can foster this work by asking students to see their projects through others' eyes, composing an entry-point for an audience that wasn't originally central to the project.
• Project integrations ; curation often extends beyond the boundaries of a single project, showing connections between projects or situations. In asking students to integrate projects, articulating connections and differences between them, faculty help students create more robust and holistic frameworks to account for their college experiences.

3. Integrated composition (or remediation)

When digital portfolios are customizable websites with adaptable publicity settings, they offer new affordances to students and faculty. Integrated compositions harness those portfolios by requiring students to create projects that evoke or explore conventions in digital media. Here are just a few examples:

• Digital essays ; digital essays - the genre of writing that has emerged with the digitization of formerly print magazines and the evolution of new-media journalism - use the conventions of educated online writing, perhaps explicitly modeling assignments on examples from digital magazines. In asking students to write within the online setting, using web publishing tools, faculty invite students to evoke online audiences and make decisions about form and content based on the relationship between purpose, audience, and medium.
• Blog posts ; like digital essays, blog posts evoke the forms of public, digital media that students encounter in their daily lives. Typically more informal and exploratory then digital essays, blog posts offer students a chance to try on different voices, generate new ideas about course materials, and build connections across posts.
• Course magazine ; a practice of collective curation, a course magazine invites students to reflect on their work as a community, make choices about how to articulate the relationships between their projects and how to present that collective work to audiences outside the classroom.
• Remediation ; a well-established assignment type in digital rhetoric , remediations ask students to transform a completed project for a new medium and new audience, fostering greater audience and genre awareness along the way. A faculty member might, for example, ask students to take a thoroughly researched essay and use its conclusions, evidence, and claims to build a website aimed at a popular audience.
• Multimodal projects ; of course websites can coordinate sound, image, and text in intricate ways. Multimodal projects require students to practice this work by integrating multiple kinds of media.

Canvas & WordPress

Portfolio sites give faculty access to teaching resources not available on Canvas. Composing a website, students can see and explore connections to the media they encounter every day. They can explore and practice multimedia composing in a format that feels authentic. And they can ask students to make more explicit connections between the class they are in and the rest of their college experience.

Because of the nature of the two systems, treating the WordPress portfolio like Canvas is a mistake . Students ought to have control over who sees constructive feedback that you provide, for example. And the built-in tracking tools in Canvas (which, among other things, note whether or not an assignment is late or incomplete) aren't available in our WordPress platform, called Journeys .

For projects that are composed and published on the portfolio sites, our recommendation is to keep grading and the tracking of assignment completion in Canvas.

For graded assignments that are completed in the portfolio, consider requiring students to submit something to Canvas so that you can provide grading or constructive feedback through that platform. Doing so preserves the timing of the submission and allows you to track your class conveniently. Simply ask set the Canvas assignment to accept a URL only and instruct students to submit the URL of the page or post they create to fulfill the assignment.

Site visibility and privacy

Portfolio-based assignments come in many shapes and sizes. Some require a public audience to promote learning. Others might ask for personal reflection best kept private. To help students navigate these waters, we recommend the following:

Let students dictate the visibility settings for deep reflections

For assignments that ask students to reflect deeply on their learning, consider allowing students to determine how public or private the page or post containing the reflection is. There are a couple of ways for students to make those reflections visible to you, but not to the rest of the Dartmouth community:

• They can make a page or post "password protected" and share the password with you as a comment on their assignment submission.
• They can set their site visibility to allow access only registered users of their site; if the student then adds you as a reader in the WordPress "Users" interface, you will be able to see a published page or post on the site.

Ensure students understand the basics of site visibility

Students should understand who can see their sites. Visiting the site visibility settings (Dashboard > Settings > Reading) lays out the choices available to students. If you're having trouble understanding those choices or would like to ask that a DartWrite representative visit your class to work with students on that issue and other WordPress topics, email us at [email protected].

(1): Perkins, David & Salomon, Gavriel. (1999). Transfer Of Learning. 11.

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17.7: How can portfolios be used for assessment?

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• Jennfer Kidd, Jamie Kaufman, Peter Baker, Patrick O'Shea, Dwight Allen, & Old Dominion U students
• Old Dominion University

By Megan Ricardo

Learning Objectives

• Readers should be able to fully understand what a rubric is.
• Readers will start to understand how rubrics can be assessed.
• Readers will learn how to use portfolios in a variety of class subjects.

What is a Portfolio?

A portfolio has been defined as "a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas, the collection must include student participation in selecting contents, and show evidence of self-reflection (Paulson 1991). Rubrics have been used for several years in classes such as english and art, however are becoming more popular and are gaining more support in terms of assessment. A portfolio is basically a way for a student to reflect work done, and perhaps see growth building learning provided by the student himself. Portfolios are also used to be sent into some colleges or jobs, it provides an example of your current values and the way you make choices, without you even knowing it (Paulson 1991)! Assessment is becoming harder and harder with pressure on scaffolding and building learning for each individual. A portfolio allows "staff and students to understand the educational process at the level of the individual," making the learning and assessment based on the individual and not the general class such as a test (Paulson 1991). By learning more about portfolio and portfolio assessment, we as educated teachers can decide how they might be used in our own classrooms.

"Portfolios allow students to assume ownership in ways that few other instructional approaches allow, it requires students to collect and reflect on examples of their work, providing both an instructional component to the curriculum and offering the opportunity for authentic assessments" (Paulson 1991)

Guidelines for Realizing the Power of Portfolios

Portfolios include the power to reveal a lot about their creator and their learning in a formal way (Paulson). This power would not be useful if several key characteristics mentioned in the article "What makes a Portfolio a Portfolio" are not kept in mind. First, the portfolio must allow the student to learn about learning, this makes them involved and actively aware of the process. Second, the portfolio must be done "by the student and not to the student," this helps the student to "value themselves as learners". Third, the portfolio is not a cumulative folder, the student must be concise in deciding what will go into the portfolio, not everything should be in there. Fourth, the portfolio must contain the following parts, the rationale, intents of the student, contents, standards, and judgements as well as a reflection. This will allow students to "bring understandings and applications to the surface, thus encouraging metacognitive and reflective thinking (King 2008). Fifth, work should be kept throughout the year with the portfolio in mind but may be sorted through before producing the final portfolio. This is a great chance for students to keep up with unfinished work. Sixth, a portfolio may have multiple purposes but they should never conflict. Seventh, the portfolio should have information that shows growth within the class period. If there is no growth in a full year this may be a sign that learning did not occur. And finally, these portfolios will not happen themselves, be sure to guide the students and give proper instruction to make this a learning tool and not a punishment or stressful activity.

The impact of Portfolios as a tool of Assessment

Portfolios are different than standardized tests. Some argue that they are better, some argue they are worse. Naturally two sides will occur. The best we can do is to examine the characteristics of assessment and make the choice ourself. Achievement tests can give outcomes which can be "counted and accounted," yet "portfolio assessment offers the opportunity to observe students in a broader context: taking risks, developing creative solutions, and learning to make judgements about their own performances. (Paulson 1991). One of the problems of assessments such as tests or rubrics is that the student is only allowed statistics to be produced of their work, portfolio assessment is different. The student puts so much into the portfolio, the teacher is almost an outsider looking in when they grade it, on tests or rubrics, the teacher is looking for something they wrote down to look for. Portfolios allow a teacher to be taught on what might come out of the portfolio. "Portfolios provide an intersection between instruction and assessment and a means for the student to value themselves as learners, (King 2008) this helps students to be more positive and creative when turning in their portfolio which will thus produce a more satisfying grade. Since a student may not know what to put into the portfolio, teachers can guide the student by giving them "key assignments," these allow students to "write a metacognitive description explaining their thinking on how they showed the connections among theories" (King 2008). The key assignments are basically just main subjects from which a student can pick one of their works to relate to. Using portfolios can strongly help assessment in the classroom.

Ways to use Portfolios in a variety of classes

Up to this point, you may have been thinking a portfolio is only useful in art. But portfolios have been effectively used in many different subject areas. There are different kinds of portfolios and perhaps by looking at them we can get ideas of which ones we might be able to use for which subjects. A showcase portfolio "displays the candidate's depth of knowledge and is a compilation of successfully completed work" (King 2008). A great example of this kind of portfolio would be an art portfolio including several pieces of work, or maybe a history portfolio containing maps or other related works, or perhaps a Spanish portfolio of different Spanish speaking countries and information about each. Next there is a formative portfolio which "illustrates a student's learning processes over time and demonstrates growth" (King 2008). An example of this type of portfolio might be an English portfolio containing papers, poems or other forms of literature. Also, a math portfolio containing several examples of the main points of each chapter and how to do the problems step by step with the students comments on the best way to learn how to do this problem. Either way you look at it, showcase or formative, a portfolio can be used in any classroom in multiple ways but still holds the same benefits of the assessment of it.

Example Portfolio Assessment

This is an example of a perfect portfolio assessment sheet/rubric. By scrolling down to the "Content Assessment Rubric" we can see an assessment of a portfolio. (Click the one to go to the link) [1] (Gonzalez 2004). This is an example of a rubric to grade a portfolio keeping in mind the student's process of creating the portfolio and the individual. It shows how a portfolio might be graded for not only completion but elements required for the full learning through using the portfolio to occur. This is a good example because it does not only grade on content but also on what the student did to further their learning and how effective the assignment was and it even goes as far as showing the effectiveness of the learning outcomes. This is a strong rubric with high expectations of learning to have happened in making the portfolio, a perfect assessment for this type of assignment.

Portfolios have "become a mechanism to guide our own individual practices," the students are learning how to learn and the teachers are being taught by what the students have learned. By reflection on what a portfolio is, how it can be used, and its relationship to assessment, we as teachers can now start to form our opinion about using portfolios. The way we use a portfolio will vary from class to class and subject to subject, but one thing will always remain the same, "a portfolio provides a forum that encourages students to develop the abilities needed to become independent, self-directed learners," (Paulson 1991) and when they have done this, is our job of assessment not already half over?

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

1. What is a characteristic of a portfolio?

A. Allows students to fill out multiple choice questions.

B. Contains all documents from the entire course.

C. Must show reflection in the portfolio making process.

D. None of the above.

2. What are the two types of portfolios?

A. Formative and Summative

B. Formal and Informal.

C. Showcase and Formative.

D. Terrible and Good.

3. Which assignment listed below could a portfolio and portfolio assessment be used in to effectively grade a students learning:

A. A study of painting and growth of students painting technique

B. Doing a collection of history maps and reflecting on old maps versus new maps.

D. Neither A or B.

4. A Portfolio cannot be used to grade:

A. A students growth in general writing processes.

B. A multiple choice math problem assignment.

C. A collection of designs for a small engine project.

D. A compilation of poems written in a Spanish class.

Gonzalez, (2004). Portfolio Assessment Rubrics. Retrieved March 23, 2009, from Samford.edu Web site: www.samford.edu/ctls/Portfolio_Assessment_Rubrics.doc

King, Caryn M., Patterson, Nancy G., & Stolle, Elizabeth P. (2008). Portfolio assessment: Making connections, guiding change.. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. 7, Number 3, 4-9.

Paulson , F. Leon, Paulson , P.R., & Meyer, C.A. (1991). What Makes a Portfolio a Portfolio?. Educational Leadership. 60-63.

• Teaching Tips

Portfolios in Psychology Classes

In this Teaching Tips article, our goal is to share our experience using portfolios in psychology courses and dispel some of the “myths” we encountered along the way. Our hope is that our experience can help others considering the use of portfolios who may be hesitant to implement them due to concerns such as: They are a haphazard collection of student work, are too time-intensive to incorporate into a large course, are independent and non-collaborative projects, or are technologically impossible to implement. The article that follows describes our collective experience implementing portfolios in a course taught by one of the authors (MB). ~Melissa, Linda, and Sue

“By doing this portfolio, I want to continue to learn more about {the topic}, even after the class is over.” Student comment, Fall 2009

What instructor wouldn’t like to see a comment like the one above at the end of the semester?  As an instructor of a sophomore-level Introduction to Neuroscience survey course several semesters ago, I found this comment especially rewarding. That semester, I  decided to implement portfolios for the first time in the course, a decision that I made after much deliberation. Along the way, I encountered a number of portfolio “myths” that could have stopped me in my tracks. Looking back, I’m glad that I did not believe the myths, and that my students and I were able to learn and grow from that first portfolio experience. Now, after using portfolios in the course for nearly three years, I would like to share what I have learned, and help to both dispel some of the more prevalent myths and offer some practical examples and suggestions for other instructors considering a portfolio project for their classes.

Why consider a portfolio project in the first place? In reflecting on my experiences in the survey class, I found myself thinking about some of my conversations with students in the course. Some students were passionate about topics in psychology that related to our course but that were not going to be covered that semester. As I thought more about these students, I realized that all of their topics could not be covered in the course and was disappointed  that these innate interests could not be cultivated and engaged. I wanted a way to allow students to explore a topic of their choice, particularly something they personally connected with or had an interest in as part of the survey course. I decided to try a portfolio project to allow students to pursue these topics in a more focused way than our in-class lectures and activities allowed.

In my course, students developed a working “personal interest” portfolio based on written assignments completed throughout the semester. There was an assignment approximately every two weeks, which involved researching causes, symptoms, and treatments for diseases of the nervous system and how the disease affects various parts of the nervous system. For each assignment, students were provided with a prompt about which aspect of the topic to research, ideas for locating primary or secondary research materials, and expectations about the use of American Psychological Association (APA) style format. Each assignment included a grading rubric available to students as they completed the assignment. Accompanying each assignment, students included a two- to three-paragraph reflection. Students selected three assignments as the focal points of their final portfolios at the end of the semester and wrote a one-page self-assessment of the entire project. This general approach could be used for other areas of psychology as well: for example, stages of development in developmental psychology, disorders in abnormal psychology, statistical techniques in a research methods class, or development of theories in social psychology.

As I designed and implemented the personal interest portfolio in the Introduction to Neuroscience survey course, I grappled with several portfolio myths:

Myth 1: A portfolio is a scrapbook.

Many professors’ understanding of a portfolio is that it is a collection of assignments put together to display student work. Admittedly, when I first thought about using a portfolio for my undergraduate psychology survey course, I, too, thought that it was just a collection of assignments, perhaps loosely woven together with a common research theme. As I discovered, however, portfolios are much more. The lesson artifacts gathered in a portfolio have a specific purpose, and that purpose includes “exhibiting to the student and others the student’s efforts, progress, or achievement” (Johnson & Rose, 1997, p. 6). By engaging in the portfolio process, students and/or professors carefully collect, select, and reflect on their work. While professor feedback is part of the process, student reflection is the key to “promoting student engagement and learning” (Birkett, Neff, Pieper, 2012, p. 49) and allowing students to get a full view of their own learning.

In designing my first portfolio project, I wanted to move beyond a scrapbook approach and guide students in creating an organized and professional presentation of their work, showcasing their reflection, learning, and progress over a semester. Efforts to produce a high-quality, professional product that students could be proud of took a big leap forward this past semester with the help of a teaching assistant. The teaching assistant organized and led APA-format writing workshops for students outside of class and provided additional feedback on APA-formatting on all assignments throughout the semester. She also helped select examples of “professional” work from past semesters to share with students and explained to students the importance of a professional writing style. Together, we implemented more thorough and descriptive rubric categories for “professionalism” for each assignment. These changes resulted in a notable increase in the quality of portfolios this past semester. Taking time to explain the importance of professional presentation and to make expectations explicit helped avoid a scattered scrapbook approach to our portfolios.

Myth 2: The amount of time it takes to provide quality feedback makes it impossible to implement portfolios in a large course.

When I first thought about using portfolios in my classroom, I was a little overwhelmed with the thought of grading 70 written assignments each week, but I was determined to create an environment that promoted student learning and engagement. As a result, I decided to spend a little more time in the planning stages and found that careful planning is one of the first steps to ensuring a successful portfolio project. As a part of this first step, I defined a purpose for the portfolio and then aligned the portfolio project to the course learning objectives. Next, I designed assignments and rubrics with these learning objectives in mind. I had to allocate an appropriate amount of time for each assignment, break assignments into smaller components, and find or build links between what students were learning in class and their port folio assignments.

Once I understood the connections between the assignments and course content, it was much easier to explicitly communicate to students the purpose of the portfolio in a clear, organized, and concise manner. During each class, I demonstrated the connections between the course content and the portfolio assignments. One way I did this was to model the reflection process by showing student assignments and reflection examples. In doing so, I set high expectations where students made connections between portfolio assignments, course/class concepts, student backgrounds, and the real world. As a result, students better understood that the portfolio was not just about organization and presentation, but also about reflection and making connections.

There were six graded portfolio assignments throughout the semester, which made the final portfolio submission easier to grade at the end of the semester. In fact, the total amount of time I spent on grading was equivalent to the time I would typically spend grading homework or disconnected written assignments (Birkett, Neff, & Pieper, 2012, p. 60). One other modification that helped facilitate written feedback while using time efficiently was to allow students to omit one assignment or drop one low writing assignment grade during the semester. This not only reduced the total number of assignments that were graded throughout the semester, but it also allowed students some control over the directions of their portfolios and provided them with the flexibility to modify their schedules/work loads over the course of the semester.

Finally, because individual assignments had already been graded once and students had received feedback to incorporate, with the help of a rubric, grading of the final portfolios was relatively efficient. The final portfolio rubric included weighted components for: the inclusion of required elements, the quality of those elements, and how well the student demonstrated basic principles of neuroscience as determined by the course outcomes. Overall, I provided very few comments on the final portfolios. A copy of the rubric used in past semesters was recently published in the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching (Birkett, Neff & Pieper, 2012). While it does take longer to grade a portfolio than a multiple-choice exam, I believe the benefits of using an authentic, in-depth learning activity far outweigh the loss of time spent grading each assignment. With careful planning and deliberate decisions about where you would like to spend time providing feedback to students, the grading process can be made manageable.

Myth 3: Portfolios are a self-contained course project for students to work on independently.

This myth might only be half-myth. In my experience, it is important for students to work on developing their research and writing for a portfolio independently. However, the portfolio is not a self-contained course project. Creating a successful portfolio experience has involved students collaborating with assessment and technology experts, librarians, and classmates.

Before beginning a portfolio assignment for the first time, I sought advice from campus experts on assessment and technology about the best ways to implement this type of project. These individuals became instrumental in informing decisions about how to structure assignments, how best to use features of the learning management system (LMS) on our campus (e.g., Blackboard Learn or similar systems), and how to develop rubrics and efficiently provide feedback to students. Key questions I asked these experts included:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using portfolios as opposed to other assignment options?
• What potential portfolio assignment delivery and grading options are available through the LMS at our school?
• What grading rubric options are available and which will best suit the needs of the assignments?
• What types of assessments best align the portfolio project with the learning outcomes for the class?

Next, because this portfolio project involved student use of research resources to investigate self-selected topics, I sought the assistance of librarians. Who better to teach students about the research resources available at your school than the people who specialize in the process? Our university has a librarian dedicated to helping students and faculty in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, from whom I learned that the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL) has outlined a set of information literacy standards for undergraduate psychology students, which align closely with the APA’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (see Hughes and Birkett, 2011). The overlapping nature of these guidelines helped us discuss the relevance of a portfolio project involving research in both of our disciplines. As a result, we were able to set goals for the project that could benefit students in a more comprehensive way than I had initially envisioned. Near the beginning of the semester, the librarian visited the class to discuss research strategies and processes with the students. Over the past several semesters, this librarian-led instruction has evolved to include visiting a computer lab during class, leading students step-by-step through the process of selecting keywords and search terms, refining search results, and evaluating the quality of research resources.

Finally, I wanted to give students a personal responsibility over the portfolio projects. I wanted students to see that their work mattered, and to engage them in an authentic effort to create a professional piece of work that could be read by colleagues.  I’ve tried several different approaches over the semesters but most recently found that in order to strive to make a portfolio worthy of being read by colleagues, it must actually be read by them. I did this by organizing small groups of informal student “review panels” at the end of the semester and asked students in each panel to bring their completed portfolios to class and share them with their peers. To facilitate the process, I provided students with short prompts about what aspects of the portfolio to share. In the future, it might be beneficial to establish these reviews periodically throughout the semester so that students can receive peer feedback and suggestions during the portfolio creation process.

Myth 4: E(lectronic)-portfolios are the best solution.

Working with our e-Learning Center, I considered using an e-portfolio, or an online storage system for the course portfolio assignments, but upon further assessment, I decided against it. I was more interested in students learning how to engage in the research process and reflect on their learning than being technically savvy presenters of information. On the other hand, should your portfolio purpose include “learning that involves reflection, community, and making connections” in an online environment (Hyland & Kranzow, 2012, p. 70), then you may want to carefully consider both the challenges and benefits involved in building an e-portfolio.

Introducing an online e-portfolio system takes time. You will need to ensure that either you have the technical competency to answer students’ questions about the system or that you can partner with an instructional technology expert who has the time and expertise to answer these inevitable questions. Another obstacle to consider is the need to provide students “with clear guidance on confidentiality and the use of digital media” (Moores & Parks, 2010, p. 47). Students need to understand how to cite electronic sources and when to acquire consent to avoid plagiarizing or breaching individual confidentiality. E-portfolios may have many benefits in your learning context; however, you need to clearly evaluate “what added value the electronic portfolio can bring to the group of students” (Moores & Parks, 2010, p. 47).

If e-portfolios fit your needs, they offer a number of benefits over paper portfolios. E-portfolios allow students to incorporate multimedia products or research elements into their final portfolios and make it easy for students to link to additional sources or non-traditional resources, such as videos, interviews, animations, or artwork. E-portfolios can facilitate sharing student work outside the classroom, for instance, by posting them on websites to or setting up on-line collaborations with peers to receive feedback. Finally, e-portfolios provide a unique opportunity for students in online or hybrid courses to partake in the benefits of the portfolio process. For those considering e-portfolios, Vigorito (2011) provides a wealth of ideas for beginning to implement them in psychology classes.

My current plans do not include implementing e-portfolios because I still find value in having students bring a physical copy of their work to class on the final day. Anecdotally, students also report that they like to have a final hard copy to share with classmates and a physical representation of what they have learned over the course. However, if I were to develop a fully online section of this course, I would consider many of the unique e-portfolio options available from education companies and new tools or modules being added by learning management systems.

Altogether, my experience with portfolios has been overwhelmingly positive. This brief description of the process illustrates only one form that a portfolio project may take and addresses only a few of the portfolio myths and benefits. Other educators have tailored portfolios to suit the needs of their individual courses and written at greater length about their experiences (see References and Recommended Reading section). Although research about implementing portfolios has been slow to develop (Herman & Winter, 1994), empirical studies are slowly accumulating to help inform this evidence-based practice (see References and Recommended Reading section).

I have now been using this portfolio project in the survey class for nearly three years.

Each semester brings more refinement of the process and new ideas to evaluate. Implementing portfolios and dispelling myths has proven to be a rewarding and engaging process. Our hope is that in thinking about the ideas, examples, and myths raised in this article, you may find an opportunity to consider a portfolio project for your class and realize the benefits too.

Do you have any materials for teachers wanting to implement a portfolio assignment in their classroom that you would be willing to share?

I would be happy to share materials! Please email me directly at Melissa dot Birkett at NAU dot EDU.

Would you still be willing to share examples and rubrics? Thanks

Melissa do you still have materials regarding student portfolios? I would appreciate any help you can provide. Both examples & rubrics would be GREAT! Thanks.

I would appreciate receiving rubrics and handouts on instructions. I am implementing this for a large (over 100) lecture course. Thanks!

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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.

Portfolio Assessment: Meaning, Types, Benefits, and Examples

What is portfolio assessment?

For non-education graduate students like me, bewilderment comes next whenever I see this word during training courses on curriculum development.

Two questions come to mind:

• How do I incorporate this form of assessment in the evaluation of student or even my performance as a professor or teacher?
• Does the application of this form of assessment enable teachers to evaluate their students or themselves better?

This article explains how it works and provides some examples with some useful links for further reading. Read on to find out and apply as part of your teaching strategy.

Table of Contents

Introduction.

In the landscape of learning and professional development, the measure of student competency goes beyond isolated tests and examinations. Among the many assessment methods employed, portfolio assessment stands out for its holistic approach that links theory with practice.

This in-depth analysis aims to demystify portfolio assessment, exploring its definition, types, benefits, and real-life examples that shed light on its practical applications. While predominantly used in education, the insights derived from this approach are also transferable to professional development, demonstrating a broad spectrum of its functionality.

Defining Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment defined.

Portfolio assessment is a method of assessment often used in academic and professional fields, where an individual’s ability, progress, and achievement are evaluated through review of a pre-selected collection of work known as a portfolio. This portfolio may consist of various forms of work samples like projects, reports, examinations, observations , or other forms of evidence that reflect a person’s competency or growth over time.

Portfolio assessment can be very beneficial, as it provides a cumulative and comprehensive view of an individual’s achievements, rather than focusing on isolated performances or individual test scores. It supports interdisciplinary learning and promotes self-directed learning opportunities, helping individuals become independent, self-reflective learners.

Key Principles of Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment follows 4 key principles.

The first one is the collection of evidence from various sources and across different periods, demonstrating the breadth and depth of an individual’s ability or progress.

The second essential principle is the organization and presentation of the collected works in a manner that enables easy and meaningful review.

The third principle involves evaluating the portfolio , usually by multiple reviewers, to ensure fairness and objectivity. Reviews may be based on established criteria or rubrics, or sometimes on relative progress and development.

The final principle is reflection , which is facilitated through the portfolio’s structure, encouraging the individual to reflect on their learning progress and areas of improvement.

Portfolio Assessment in Education

In an educational setting, portfolio assessment is often applied to demonstrate students’ learning and growth over the course of a school term or academic year.

Examples of elements included in an educational portfolio could be a series of writing assignments that demonstrate the progression of writing skills, art projects that reflect the development of artistic techniques, or science projects that show the understanding of scientific concepts.

Teachers may use portfolio assessment as a tool to gauge students’ understanding in a comprehensive manner, looking at the overall progress instead of individual marks from tests and quizzes. It also helps teachers identify areas where the student may need additional support or resources to improve.

Portfolio Assessment in Professional Development

In the field of professional development , portfolio assessments are used to evaluate and determine an individual’s professional competence and growth. For instance, in medicine, a practitioner might compile relevant case studies , patient feedback , peer reviews , training certificates , or research participation to form their professional portfolio.

This compilation provides a comprehensive and continuous record of a professional’s competence, demonstrating their ongoing learning, development, and progression in their field. The portfolio is frequently reviewed and updated to reflect the evolution and enhancement of a professional’s skills, abilities, and experiences over time.

The portfolio is frequently reviewed and updated to reflect the evolution and enhancement of a professional’s skills, abilities, and experiences over time.

Portfolio assessment serves as an all-encompassing approach to scrutinize individual development and learning. It champions a reflective, autonomous, and perpetual learning style.

Types of Portfolio Assessment

Why is portfolio assessment distinctive.

Portfolio assessment stands out as an instructional, diversity-friendly evaluation method. It encapsulates a collection of a student’s work over an extended duration, demonstrating progress, competence, capacity, and accomplishment in specific fields.

Portfolio assessments are distinctive due to their ability to offer a comprehensive perspective of a student’s skills, showcasing not merely the knowledge they possess, but also how they utilize and convey this knowledge. The portfolio can encompass various elements such as written tasks, reading records, projects, self-evaluations, alongside reviews from classmates or instructors.

Three Types of Portfolio Assessment

There are various types of portfolio assessments, each with specific characteristics that suit its intended use. Portfolio assessments are categorized into three primary types: assessment portfolios, showcase portfolios, and learning portfolios.

1. Assessment Portfolios

Assessment portfolios , otherwise known as evaluative portfolios, contain work that has been evaluated according to set standards or criteria. These portfolios demonstrate a student’s ability to meet specific learning standards. They often contain rubrics, test results, student reflections, teacher’s notes , and graded assignments .

For instance, in a Science class, an assessment portfolio may contain lab reports , results from class tests , assessed projects , and the student’s reflection on their learning throughout the term. Evaluation is often comparative, and is accomplished by using scoring guides or rubrics. The main aim of an assessment portfolio is to display clear evidence of learning.

2. Showcase Portfolios

A showcase portfolio , on the other hand, represents the best work of a student. Unlike the assessment portfolio, the showcase port f olio allows the student to select their most outstanding work, hence demonstrating their highest level of learning and achievement. It can contain final drafts of assignments, projects, or any piece of work that the student is particularly proud of.

The purpose of a showcase portfolio is to provide a sense of accomplishment and to display one’s best abilities. An example might be a portfolio of an art student, presenting their best paintings or sketches.

3. Learning Portfolios

Lastly, learning portfolios , also known as process portfolios, document the learning process of a student. Unlike the other types of portfolios which emphasize on the final product, the learning portfolio focuses on the learning journey and the progress made . This may include drafts, revisions, mistakes, feedback, and reflections indicating how the student has overcome difficulties and improved over time.

For instance, in a literature class, a learning portfolio could include an initial draft of a book review , followed by the teacher’s comments, the revised drafts, and finally, the final version of the review. This allows for an accurate tracking of a student’s learning progression and the process of knowledge development over a period of time.

Comparison Between the Types

The primary difference between these three types of portfolios lies in their purpose and the type of work they encompass. Assessment portfolios are reliant on evaluated work to depict a student’s ability to align with specific learning standards. Showcase portfolios, however, are a collection of a student’s best work, exemplifying their skills, creativity, and personal learning outcomes. Learning portfolios focus on the student’s learning process, capturing their journey from inception to completion of learning objectives.

While each type has its individual strengths, they also have limitations. For example, assessment portfolios offer a comprehensive view of student achievements but may not fully capture a student’s creative abilities like a showcase portfolio would. Conversely, a showcase portfolio might not adequately demonstrate how the student has improved over a period. A learning portfolio can show this improvement, but it requires careful and continuous documentation and management to be effective.

Identifying the Ideal Portfolio

Deciding the right type of portfolio hinges upon the primary learning goals and the level of understanding needed about a student’s educational pursuits and accomplishments.

Benefits and Challenges of Portfolio Assessment

4 benefits of portfolio assessment.

Portfolio assessment technique is beneficial in a multitude of contexts, including educational and professional settings. I enumerate four of these in the next paragraphs and highlight the important benefits.

1. Allows for a Comprehensive Evaluation

Portfolio assessment allows for a comprehensive evaluation of one’s skills, knowledge, and performance, rather than focusing solely on a single task or test result. This holistic approach can more accurately reflect an individual’s learning or professional growth and provides deep insights which are often overlooked in traditional assessments.

2. Encourages Self-Assessment and Reflection

Portfolio assessment encourages self-assessment and reflection, promoting personal responsibility for one’s learning and development. Students or professionals actively engage in collecting, selecting, and analyzing their work, receiving feedback, and setting future goals. This process enhances their critical thinking and decision-making skills.

3. Offers Flexibility

Portfolio assessment is especially beneficial in settings where diverse skills and competencies need to be evaluated. It offers flexibility, as different kinds of evidence can be included depending on the specific skills or abilities one wants to showcase.

4. Provides a Tangible Record

Portfolio assessment provides a tangible record that can be utilized for future learning, professional growth, or performance evaluation purposes. Hence, you can always refer back to it whenever needed for some useful purposes such as program accreditation.

Challenges of Portfolio Assessment

Despite its numerous advantages, portfolio assessment also poses some challenges. A primary concern is that it requires substantial time and effort. Managing and maintaining a portfolio, particularly a physical one, can be time-consuming for both the evaluator and the individual being assessed. Considering the ongoing nature of portfolio assessment, this difficulty can become significant over time.

Another challenge pertains to the subjectivity of assessment . Given that portfolio includes a wide range of work, it can be difficult to standardize criteria and benchmarks for evaluation. Consequently, it may lead to inconsistences and bias during the review process.

Moreover, there could be issues with validity and reliability of the assessment . For example, in academic settings, unless closely monitored, students might submit work that was not solely theirs, casting doubt on the authenticity of the portfolio. In professional settings, embellishments or omissions of certain aspects of work might question the validity of the career narratives presented in the portfolios.

Addressing Potential Hurdles

In the face of potential challenges surrounding portfolio assessments, a host of strategic approaches can be adopted to ensure optimal benefits. Matters such as time and management can be effectively handled with digitally maintained portfolios that are simpler to organize.

Additionally, conducting training sessions for the evaluators guarantees that a consistent standard is maintained during the assessment process. To prevent biased evaluations, the institution of multiple independent reviewers can be beneficial.

Finally, to ensure the portfolio’s authenticity, individuals can be asked to orally defend their portfolios or provide written explanations detailing the learning process involved in each piece of their work.

When undertaken with meticulous planning and careful execution, portfolio assessments can act as a potent tool, enabling and monitoring growth and learning while providing invaluable insights for future pursuits.

Real-Life Portfolio Assessment Examples

A classic example of the use of portfolio assessment is in the field of education.

For instance, a student portfolio may contain essays, projects, examinations, and other types of work carried out over the semester or academic year. Such a portfolio would demonstrate a student’s growth and achievement, as well as their critical thinking skills, creativity, and level of effort.

Through these assessment portfolios, teachers can evaluate student’s learning progress compared to the curriculum standards and objectives. Notably, teachers also provide feedback and offer minibreaks to guide students in the learning process.

Portfolio Assessment in Clinical Training

In the medical field, portfolio assessment is widely used in clinical training. Medical students are often required to maintain a portfolio of the procedures they carried out , observations made , case reports , reflective pieces , and supervisor’s feedback throughout their clinical training. This allows the instructors to assess their competency, readiness and performance progress in the clinical environment. Portfolio assessment gives a more comprehensive analysis of clinical competency compared to traditional assessments, such as multiple-choice tests.

Portfolio Assessment in Job Application Process

In the professional arena, portfolio assessment is commonly used in the job application process. A job applicant’s portfolio could include a resume , samples of work , letters of recommendation , certifications , and diplomas . An applicant may also add reflective narratives to explain the context of their work and what they were able to learn or achieve. This provides the hiring managers a comprehensive view of the applicant’s skills, achievements, and experiences, enhancing the likelihood of fair candidate assessment.

Portfolio Assessment in Art and Design

In the field of Art and design, portfolio assessments are absolutely critical. An artist or design professional’s portfolio can include sketches , paintings , designs , photographs , and other creative works. The works in the portfolio stand as a testimony to their creative and technical skills, their unique style, and their visual communication capabilities.

Portfolio Assessment in Real Estate

In the context of real estate, a portfolio assessment might involve the extensive analysis of a set of property investments. An investor might compile a portfolio containing details about property values , rental income , property conditions , locations , market trends , amongst other aspects. The assessment of this portfolio helps to determine the feasibility, profitability, and risks associated with each property, enabling wise investment decisions.

Overall Conclusion

Overall, portfolio assessment stands as a versatile method that gives a holistic picture of an individual’s abilities, growth, and achievements over a certain period. Whether it’s in a learning environment, during a job application, or within different professional fields, portfolio assessments can serve several purposes and offer insightful results.

Employing portfolio assessment in various fields stands as a testament to its adaptability and efficacy. It is not without its challenges, of course, but the array of advantages it offers is undeniably valuable.

Portfolio assessment amplifies the learning experience, fostering deeper understanding and encouraging self-directed learning. Explicit real-life examples gathered across multiple disciplines delineate the versatility of its application, illuminating its potential as a key tool in learning and professional development.

A thorough comprehension of portfolio assessment bolsters the journey of continuous learning and growth, paving the way for a more comprehensive and engaging educational journey.

At this point, portfolio assessment is no longer alien to you. On my part, I realized that this performance assessment presents a whole new world of possibilities in my teaching profession. It’s not too late to use portfolio assessment as an alternative to common assessment tools that we used to apply in imparting knowledge and learning to the students, and even in evaluating ourselves as we ponder how far we have gone in our professional development journey.

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Purdue basketball's Camden Heide made an all-time highlight, but he wasn't supposed to

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Camden Heide became a highlight in college basketball for eternity.

But did you know it only happened because he abandoned his assignment?

Purdue basketball fans remember Jon Octeus "baptizing the masses" against Indiana, Carsen Edwards' "I'm not playing" left-handed dunk, also against the Hoosiers, and even Big Dog Glenn Robinson posterizing Kansas' Greg Ostertag in the Sweet 16.

More: He 'changed this program.' Zach Edey's Purdue basketball legacy is in rarified air

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Heide, Purdue's high-flying redshirt freshman, set the standard for mind-blowing dunks when he grabbed a rebound out of midair, cupped it in his right hand and threw it back through the hoop early in the second half of the Boiler's 75-60 loss to UConn in Monday night's NCAA men's basketball national championship.

It was a play made on instinct.

"I wasn't supposed to crash because they wanted me to get the jam and get back in transition, but I think (Cam) Spencer was on me and he turned his back to go get Zach (Edey) and go for the rebound," Heide explained. "So it was a perfect opportunity and the ball came off the hoop in a perfect way and I was able to dunk it."

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

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