Portfolio Use in Education: Strategies, Intelligences, and Programs
Basic Use of the Portfolio
The portfolio is a tool for collecting data from different instruments used in the evaluation procedure. It offers a new way to assess the performance, efforts, progress, and achievements of students during different moments of the teaching-learning process. This evaluation aims to assess the student’s skills, knowledge, attitudes, and work habits. A portfolio provides an evolving portrait of a student’s learning process. It is a strategy that includes the child’s knowledge, thoughts, and reflections on their own learning processes.
Processing Strategies and Techniques
A) Strategies
Strategies are deliberate and planned processes designed to achieve a goal, always conditioned and determined by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors related to the subject. For most authors, the term “strategy” falls between processes and techniques. Strategies are the means used to select and/or apply one or more tactics. They involve choice, developing a plan, and acquiring control of information.
B) Learning Processes
Learning processes are defined as the mental operations involved in the learning process. Examples of processes include attention, comprehension, acquisition, and organization.
C) Techniques or Skills
Techniques or skills are actions or activities carried out to implement an approach and allow for specific tasks. These techniques are subordinate to a particular strategy and are automatic, in contrast to the controlled character of strategies. For example, an information selection strategy can be carried out using the technique of underlining or abstracting.
Three Types of Intelligence According to Gardner
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
- Creative Movement: Assesses children’s abilities in five areas of dance and creative movement.
- Obstacle Course: Assesses existing skills in different sports, including coordination, speed, balance, and strength.
Linguistic Intelligence
- Storytelling Activities (“Acuen + Accounts + Os”): Allows children to create their stories and tales, and evaluates language skills, vocabulary complexity, and sentence structure.
- Reporter Activities: Assesses children’s skills related to information and their level of interest.
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
- The Dinosaur Game: Measures counting skills and the acquisition of the concept of number.
- The Bus Game: Allows children to create a useful notation system and perform mental arithmetic.
Renzulli’s Enrichment Triad Model
Designed by Renzulli, this program is based on Guilford’s theory of the structure of intelligence. It combines two types of thinking: convergent and divergent. The program aims to encourage the development of creative abilities from the earliest educational levels. The program includes five manuals designed to encourage divergent thinking in children in early childhood and primary education. Each manual contains 24 creativity training activities. Tasks have two levels of complexity and abstraction. Tasks are designed according to the following principles:
- Present tasks in an interesting and challenging way.
- Design activities according to the principles of meaningful learning.
- Consider the significance of what is learned for other school situations and the children’s lives.