Ariel Brenner

Sports Editor

A digital portfolio system for students and teachers is currently under development and will be launched next year.

The student portfolios will be personalized webpages that allow every student to create a digital, multimedia portfolio that will include work from all of a student’s years at Milken. Anyone who is a part of the FirstClass system, including students, teachers, and parents, will be able to access and comment on any Milken portfolio. The digital portfolios will also allow colleges to view students’ work, no matter what form of digital media it is.

“The portfolio system should be a place for students to expand,” Dr. Roger Fuller, high school principal, said, “It will be a place for students to reflect and comment on their own learning and the learning of others.”

The digital portfolios will support what Fuller calls an “authentic assessment.” Both Fuller and Dr. Sarah Shulkind, middle school principal, believe that there are different types of assessment and that all students learn in distinctive ways. The portfolio system will allow the storage of many different methods of assessment.

There are currently 43 faculty members that have portfolios on the web, and more are constantly being formed. Next year, the faculty pages will be fully completed and the pages will expand to the student body as a whole. The student portfolios were planned after the teachers’ were made. Therefore, the students’ portfolios will be better and more comprehensive than the teachers’ currently are. It will also be easier for faculty members to help students in understanding the process if they have already built their own.

The digital portfolios will be implemented slowly starting next year. First selected classes in grades 7,9 and 11 will use it, and the system will grow from here.  It will also be a part of the eighth grade evaluation and a part of the course selection process.

Fuller has been waiting for the portfolios to be initiated for a long time. His favorite aspect of them is the fact that they give students more of a perspective on their work throughout the years.

“A lot of the time, we move from one topic to the next without a chance of reflection. The portfolios act as learning tools that give students a chance to pause and reflect on what they’re learning and the importance of what they’re learning,” Fuller said.