Portflow provides students with their own portfolio that grows with them throughout and beyond their course(s). The portfolio is cross-curricular. Within Portflow a structure is built by adding sections, collections and goals. The student can do this themselves or the program provides (part of) a structure through templates.
Tip!
Consider what degree of student ownership fits your vision and then make decisions about whether or not to use a template and when to share templates. You can also vary the level of detail of a template.
What is the difference between a goal, collection or section?
To structure Portflow, you work with goals, collections and sections.
Tip!
Have your goals match the curriculum so that the interrelationship is clear. Also consider the connection between learning outcomes in the LMS and goals in Portflow.
In what way(s) will templates be used?
Note: Do you want to change anything about a template, for example, because you have gained new insights? An update will not be processed for students who have already imported the template. Still want to change something that applies to all students? Do this together with students during a class, so that their portfolio structure matches the new template.
What name do you give sections, collections and goals?
You can name the elements (collections, sections and goals) in a template. Make sure you give goals a recognizable name that fits your structure. This way, goals are easy to select in a spider diagram or when requesting a progress evaluation.
What is the description of collections and goals used for?
The description of collections and goals can help students get started. Agree on how to use the description. For example, put useful information in a checklist. Consider:
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Submitting and then grading a portfolio can be done in several ways.
Tip!
Do you grade students in Portflow? Agree with the student what goals will be included and what rubric scale goes with the progress review.
What are your requirements for a portfolio?
Agree in advance whether you will set requirements for the portfolio and, if so, what requirements a portfolio must meet. That way the student knows what is expected and what is being worked toward. For example, set requirements for:
Tip!
You can document and communicate the requirements in the LMS, in class or in the description of a collection. Make sure this is clearly agreed upon within the team.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
A snapshot is a “frozen” version of (part of) the portfolio: a set of collections, goals and evidence (including previous versions) and feedback. Does a student want the portfolio reviewed (by means of a progress review) at a specific time? Then the student first creates a ‘snapshot’ of the portfolio. A (part of) the portfolio is then ‘frozen’ in a non-editable archive, at that specific time. The instructor evaluates the snapshot instead of the live portfolio. The student can continue to work on their goals in the live portfolio.
Snapshots can be found by the student under “my archive”. Students can then submit the snapshot in the LMS in an assignment. A student can also add a description when creating a snapshot.
When does the student create a snapshot?
It is not necessary to create a snapshot to conduct a progress review. Is it important for the student to “freeze” the portfolio on certain moments, such as after an internship or a semester? In that case, the student does take a snapshot. Make agreements with the team about if and when students will submit a snapshot and whether a summative assessment is attached to this.
Communicate clearly to students what the content of a snapshot should be if it is regarding a summative assesment. You can make a zip file from all content of a snapshot. That way the evidence is also available as a hard copy for downloads.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
A progress review provides insight into a student’s progress on selected goals. Progress reviews are requested by the student. Progress reviews can have a central and valuable place in Portflow, if it is consistent with the rest of the educational activities. Make team agreements about the purpose of the progress review and communicate this to the students as well.
Does the student make a request for a progress review? Then the feedback provider will find this request under the ‘My access & requests’ tab.
Please note that a progress evaluation can currently only be performed if you have access to the entire portfolio.
It is possible to work with rubric scales in Portflow and thereby visualize a student’s progress quantitatively. A rubric scale is a level valuation that indicates the degree of mastery of a goal. Each level in the rubric scale corresponds to a percentage. This percentage can be found, among other things, in:
Is the progress review requested without levels? Then these graphs are not available.
Tip!
Use a set procedure within your program for rubric scales and progress reviews. This will make it clear what the charts and visualizations represent.
In addition to the rubric scales, there is room for narrative feedback in a progress review. In the narrative feedback a reviewer can indicate, for example, what is still missing from the expected level and what the student has already mastered well.
Note: Rubric scales are available to the entire educational institution. Therefore, it is important to create a clear naming convention for the rubric scale. This will ensure that it is easy for the student to find the right one.
For what purpose and at what points in the learning process is a progress review used?
Completing a progress review requires a reasonable investment of time from the reviewer. Therefore, consider the purpose and moment in the learning process when progress reviews are requested. For example:
Think about when you want to encourage or urge students to request a progress review. Communicate the agreements to students.
How does a student request a progress review?
It is important for the student that it is clear on how to request a progress review. There are many variations in requesting one. For example:
Make clear agreements with the student about completing the description. For example: in the description, the student indicates the purpose of the review, what the feedback giver should pay attention to, and which evidences are relevant.
In what ways do you provide feedback in a progress review?
There is a lot of room for narrative feedback in completing the review. To offer more structure to this, you can think about a format and share this with students. Examples of formats:
Is feedback given with or without levels in progress reviews?
Does a student request a progress review? Then he has to select either with levels or assessment without levels. Agree within the program whether feedback is given with rubric scales or not, or only for certain goals.
Which rubric scale will be used?
Make agreements on which rubric scale will be used for progress reviews. Consider the name of the level and the percentage appropriate to the level. For example: O-V-G could be translated to 0-50-100 percent. Also think about how you help students choose among the rubric scales available. Is that their own choice, do you give advice, or do you make it a requirement?
The progress review in Portflow is not part of a summative assessment because it is used to create insights in progress and development. Want to conduct a summative assessment on student progress? Then have a snapshot submitted in the LMS in an assignment or in external testing platform using an assessment link.
Names of rubric scales can also be created as colors, words, emojis or numbers. With your team or institution, you can attach your own meanings to these levels.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Has the student not used your template, or have they rearranged your template? Then teachers may have to search for the intended structure in the portfolio. It is therefore important to make agreements with the team and students about the way in which the portfolio is set up (see the heading structure), but also about how the student keeps the overview, both for himself and for feedback providers (teachers, fellow students, external parties).
Tip!
Are you working with a template? Agree with the team what may and may not be changed in the structure and to what extent. Then communicate this to the students.
When does a student update the status of a goal?
The goal status shows which goals a student is working on at a given time, which goals have been achieved and which goals are on pause. In the goal overview, you can filter by active goals. This can help keep an overview.
Adjusting the current status of the goal, helps to show where the focus lies. For example, as a teacher, determine within what time frame a goal can be achieved and agree on when to evaluate this together. A student first updates the status before new goals are created.
How does the student provide structure to collections?
Is a student expanding collections with many pieces of evidence and goals? Then as a visitor it can be complicated to find your way through these. A reading guide for each collection or for the entire portfolio can help guide visitors around. This may include, for example:
Mentioning (and thereby creating links for) evidence can help make connections between different pieces of evidence clear. This is especially helpful when a student is requesting a progress evaluation because this often involves multiple pieces of evidence. A good request for a progress review has a clear question and mentioning evidence can help keep the overview.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Students can invite fellow students, teachers or external people to give feedback on (part of) their portfolio. In the topic ‘sharing and access’ you have already read how an external gets access to the portfolio.
As a teacher, you will find student feedback requests under the tab ‘My access and requests’.
Tip!
Practice giving and requesting good feedback. A best-practice: the instructor gives oral feedback, the student summarizes it in a feedback request. The student asks the instructor to confirm via a feedback request in Portflow whether the summary is correct and complete. Some advantages:
What is the process regarding feedback requests?
Students can attach a suggested deadline to a feedback request. Agree with your team on what a realistic deadline is so that expectations are clear to students. Questions to answer as a team:
For example, agree with students when they can ask the teacher/mentor for feedback. E.g. only after asking fellow students for feedback first.
How is the quality of feedback ensured?
As a teacher, you can type feedback yourself. A risk here is asynchronous communication: if a teacher writes feedback himself (without verbal transmission to a student), nuance can disappear. For example, use the tip above to have the student write his or her own summary of your oral feedback. That makes the student co-owner of the process and the content.
Tip!
Create a speech recording in the feedback field in Portflow. The advantage of this is that nuances can be transferred. You also encourage students to process the feedback more actively (for example, by taking notes for themselves) rather than by just reading.
Are students allowed to hide feedback?
Students can hide collections, evidence or feedback in their portfolio. However, the feedback remains visible to the person who gave the feedback. Make agreements within the team whether given feedback may be hidden from other visitors and discuss this with students. For a student’s comfort, it can sometimes be nice not to make certain feedback visible to everyone.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Students can collect and submit their evidence through two main routes.
Tip!
Use this route if the final product is more important than the progress.
Through Portflow: evidence can be created or uploaded immediately in Portflow. Then (part of) the portfolio can be submitted in the LMS in an assignment. In Portflow, there is a lot of student control. As a student, you can submit multiple versions and thereby create insight into your growth. The process is important, not just the final product. In Portflow, an instructor cannot force a submission date or evidence form. However, agreements can be made about this in the description of a collection, in a study guide, in the LMS or in class.
Tip!
Among other things, this route is appropriate for demonstrating a learning outcome through multiple pieces of evidence.
Who determines the form of the evidence?
Students have the option to upload various types of evidence, including files, LMS submissions, free text, website links and videos. All file types can be uploaded, but not all of them can be previewed in Portflow.
Consider with your team whether you want to enforce the form of the evidence, or whether students are free to choose this for themselves. Agreements can be recorded in the description of a goal or collection, LMS course, or in the study guide.
Tip!
As a teacher, do you want to stay in complete control? Then create an assignment in the LMS.
How do you handle different versions and how do you make these versions visible?
In Portflow, it is possible to add multiple versions of the same piece of evidence. Feedback is labeled with a version number and previous versions are easy to find.
Tip!
Is progress and development important? Then agree on using different versions of evidence. Also make agreements about how the student makes the progress visible. For example with descriptions per version, using a different color for new text or adding feedback per version.
Tip!
Develop a culture with each other where being vulnerable is valued and feedback is constructively sought out and provided. That way you create the richest learning experiences.
To what extent are ‘extra’ pieces of evidence part of the portfolio?
Students can also work on their competencies at a side job or during extracurricular activities. Make agreements with the team, whether students may submit these activities as (substitute) evidence for a learning outcome.
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Portflow provides students with their own portfolio that grows with them throughout and beyond their course(s). The portfolio is cross-curricular. Within Portflow a structure is built by adding sections, collections and goals. The student can do this themselves or the program provides (part of) a structure through templates.
Tip!
Consider what degree of student ownership fits your vision and then make decisions about whether or not to use a template and when to share templates. You can also vary the level of detail of a template.
What is the difference between a goal, collection or section?
To structure Portflow, you work with goals, collections and sections.
Tip!
Have your goals match the curriculum so that the interrelationship is clear. Also consider the connection between learning outcomes in the LMS and goals in Portflow.
In what way(s) will templates be used?
Note: Do you want to change anything about a template, for example, because you have gained new insights? An update will not be processed for students who have already imported the template. Still want to change something that applies to all students? Do this together with students during a class, so that their portfolio structure matches the new template.
What name do you give sections, collections and goals?
You can name the elements (collections, sections and goals) in a template. Make sure you give goals a recognizable name that fits your structure. This way, goals are easy to select in a spider diagram or when requesting a progress evaluation.
What is the description of collections and goals used for?
The description of collections and goals can help students get started. Agree on how to use the description. For example, put useful information in a checklist. Consider:
Inspiration be available here soon. Also check our website www.drieam.com for blogs about Portflow. Do you have your own inspiring case to share? Then send it to your Drieam contact.
Before getting started with Portflow as a team, it is important to think about your goals and ambitions. The questions below can help you to define goals and ambitions:
Current situation
Vision
Risks and success
Education Preconditions
Development-oriented and formative evaluation plays an important role
There is constructive alignment between learning outcomes, learning activities and evalution methods
Communication Preconditions
There is a plan for communication and training of the different stakeholders
There is a clear purpose for using a digital portfolio
Preconditions of educational team
Program manager, examination committee, curriculum committee, program committee, education coordinators and administrators are involved
