State and Accreditation Standards and K-12 Webfolios
Thomas McCambridge, Ph.D.
School of Education,
California Lutheran University, U.S.A.
mccamb@clunet.edu
Judith Crowe, Ed.D.
School of Education,
California Lutheran University, U.S.A.
crowe@clunet.edu
Silva Karayan, Ph.D.
School of Education,
California Lutheran University, U.S.A.
karayan@clunet.edu
Susanne Maliski
Social Science Department,
Ascension Lutheran School, U.S.A.
smaliski@ascensionlutheran-school.org
Paul Gathercoal, Ph.D.
School of Education,
California Lutheran University, U.S.A.
gatherco@clunet.edu
Abstract: California Lutheran University’s (CLU’s) Teacher Preparation program is
implementing a webfolio system consisting of teacher assignments, learning resources,
student artifacts, mentor feedback, and curriculum standards for K-12 partner schools.
This manuscript shares implementation strategies currently being employed to develop
the web-based electronic portfolio system in K-12 schools. This will assist those who
are planning and hope to implement a web-based electronic portfolio system in K-12
schools. The context for this manuscript is within K-12 school system where teachers
are held accountable for their students achieving statewide curriculum standards. This
manuscript will familiarize participants with what a K-12 web-based portfolio system is
and can do and convey what we are doing to implement web-based portfolios in K-12
schools. Readers will gain understanding in how K-12 web-based portfolio systems
facilitate assessment, evaluation and reporting in a single web portal.
Introduction
Today there is considerable interest in moving from paper to electronic portfolios and there seem
to be no apparent obstacles, certainly no technical obstacles. This is the view held by the authors of this
manuscript when we began implementing web-based electronic portfolios in K-12 schools. After
implementing and generating our own web-based student portfolios in higher education, our experiences at
California Lutheran University (CLU) and our work with other institutions indicate the transition is not as
easy as it seems and successful implementation depends on a set of critical success factors. In K-12
schools where some of the success factors are missing, CLU is assisting its partner schools by providing
resources and training so CLU can better prepare our preservice teachers who are placed in these partner
schools, our graduate students who are already teaching and our cooperating teachers to use technology.
As developed in this manuscript, a webfolio is a tightly integrated collection of web-based
multimedia documents that includes curricular standards, course assignments, student artifacts in response
to assignments, and reviewer feedback of students’ work. In the authors’ opinions it is the integrated
collection and how the collection is stored and used that differentiates the webfolio from other paper and
traditional electronic portfolios. The webfolio opens up new possibilities for observing and influencing the
interaction between curriculum, students, parents and teachers.
A K-12 webfolio system consisting of teacher assignments, learning resources, student artifacts,
mentor feedback, and curriculum standards that are being implemented in California Lutheran University’s
Teacher Preparation program partner schools. The webfolio system also supports continuous curriculum
improvement and allows all educators to share teaching and learning strategies, learning resources, and
assignments with their colleagues. A collaborative community of learners evolves around the development
and use of the webfolio system. Students respond to assignments linked to state curriculum standards by
generating multimedia WWW documents (artifacts). Teachers and mentors provide feedback on a
student’s work and the comments are kept as electronic logs and viewed only by the student who generated
the artifact. A web-based system instantly organizes a student's work and presents the artifacts in a student
webfolio, displaying not only the artifact, but also the associated assignments and activities. Any
authorized webfolio user can assess the student's mastery of curricular standards. A student's webfolio
starts in kindergarten, is continued through grade 12, and archives a student’s lifelong learning and career
development; as well as, showcasing the newest and finest achievements in the student’s life work. This
manuscript will discuss how the K-12 Webfolio system operates and share insights about the
implementation process in our K-12 partner schools.
Rationale for Using a Webfolio with a Standards-Based Curriculum in K-12 Schools
As with all educational reforms, the standards movement in California has brought both
opportunities and challenges. One of the challenges is to make teaching to the standards an engaging and
meaningful process for students and for teachers. A web-based portfolio system provides a way for teachers
to organize their instruction, to store student work, and to allow for authentic assessment of student
learning.
The California academic content standards are carefully organized to be sequential,
developmental, and age-appropriate. The use of a webfolio can help teachers make both instruction and
assessment also be sequential, developmental, and age-appropriate.
The challenge for California teachers is to make standards-based instruction meaningful,
purposeful, and engaging, not just another set of required exercises. Teaching to the standards is no
guarantee of effective and engaging instruction, nor is use of the webfolio such a guarantee. But portfolio
assessment allows teachers to collect work over time, which allows students and teachers to spot continuing
problems, to note areas of progress, to develop holistic evaluations of student work, and to develop holistic
evaluations of instructional success.
The webfolio also allows for and encourages the kind of long-range instructional planning
necessary for successful teaching to standards. The California academic content standards are organized in
proper sequence and move from one developmental stage to the next. By placing assignments on the
webfolio, teachers are able to organize for themselves and demonstrate to their students what the scope and
sequence are. This promotes long-term, focused, standards-based planning by instructors and it promotes a
deeper understanding of the course process by students.
One of the theoretical benefits of academic standards is that they express clear expectations for
what students should know. Organizing the standards into coherent lesson plans, unit plans, and year plans
will be a challenge for the teacher who wishes to do more than plow through the textbook chapter by
chapter. Having the webfolio as a place to post assignments accomplishes several goals in this regard.
First, the assignments over a long term are visible to the students. Second, the webfolio allows the teacher
to include a great deal of information about each assignment, including a notation of the standard or
standards being taught to, a rubric for the assignment, notes on how this assignment builds on the previous
assignments and helps prepare for the following assignments, links to web resources that would be helpful
on this assignment, and so on. And third, the authentic assessment allowed for by the use of the web
portfolio allows the teacher to modify future plans on the basis of real data.
The use of the webfolio brings together three important elements of successful instruction:
teaching to well-defined standards, the authentic assessment of a portfolio system, and the remarkable
versatility and flexibility of the web.
The Benefits of a K-12 Webfolio System
The most immediate physical benefit of a K-12 Webfolio system is the elimination of storage
problems associated with traditional portfolios. The Web-based portfolio allows students to house artifacts
in a virtual environment. No longer will they need to transport and pick-up their artifacts from the teacher.
The teacher can simply tap into their webfolio and view the artifacts any time and from any place there is
World-Wide Web access.
K-12 Webfolios can serve as working portfolios, development portfolios or showcase portfolios.
In the Webfolio system, students, in concert with their teachers, have complete control over what artifacts
are displayed and who is able to see their work samples. The K-12 webfolio system is a closed system and
the teachers have control over who can access what artifact. Initially the access is granted to both the
student and the teacher. Since students are not allowed to grant access or prevent their teachers from seeing
any of their artifacts the teacher acts as supervisor over what is being placed on the Internet. When access
is limited to just the teacher and the student, they have a working portfolio with all their artifacts that only
they can view, a developmental portfolio that they share with all teachers is generated when the teacher and
the student grant access to “All Teachers.” A showcase portfolio would consist of those items that the
teacher and the student allowed access to “Guests” and they share these artifacts with parent/caregivers and
significant others who have a need to know, however the teacher and mentor comments would be hidden
from “Guests.”
A K-12 webfolio encourages creative thinking and collaboration with others. Students are not
confined by the limitations of paper and pencil. They have the resources of the WWW available to them
and they can confer and collaborate with the world as their partner. Students can display graphics, sound,
digital video, text and presentation media all in the same portal. The possibilities are virtually limitless and
only confined to the student’s imagination.
The K-12 webfolio invites self-evaluation and reflection. Students are encouraged to take a
heuristic viewpoint and examine each artifact placed in their webfolio. Teachers can give reflective
feedback to the student and then the student can respond by altering the artifact, working towards mastery
of the subject. The student could solicit feedback from other teachers and get a second opinion on the
artifact before deciding if and how to modify an artifact. The webfolio system will allow students to
construct their own truth, reflecting on each artifact with many mirrors, their peers, teachers, and significant
others.
The use of a K-12 Webfolio system irreversibly changes the teacher’s role and the role of the
student. No longer is the student simply the recipient of information; the student is actively involved in
constructing meaning by generating and displaying for others their real world responses to questions and
assignments raised in a course or program of study. The teacher no longer simply imparts information, but
helps the student to construct meaning through facilitating and coordinating the learning environment. The
K-12 Webfolio system is truly a form of authentic assessment and it matches up well with methods and
strategies that complement constructivist philosophies.
K-12 Webfolio Assessment and State Standards
The K-12 Webfolio system allows teachers to assign State and Program Standards to each
assignment students complete. At the beginning of school, teachers type or paste their syllabi or unit plan,
along with assignments, activities, and projects into the K-12 Webfolio system. They use a built-in web-based “What-You-See-is-What-You-Get” (WYSIWYG) editor that is just like word processing. Each
assignment includes a brief description of the actual task along with sections providing additional
assignment detail, pointers to helpful Internet resources, and criterion referenced measures for assessment
(a rubric). The teacher also ties each assignment to curriculum standards, goals, learning categories and
assignment types. This simple act involving a few mouse clicks combined with the assessment scores the
teacher assigns to each student’s artifact can be used to address critical assessment questions, like:
ü Overall, have program goals and standards been met or improved?
ü Have specific program goals and standards been met?
ü Are individual students meeting goals and standards?
ü Is the curriculum designed for success?
The K-12 Webfolio system exports selected information needed to address critical assessment questions.
This information can then be imported into SPSS, SAS, EXCEL, and other analysis and graphical
presentation packages. Graphs can be generated to indicate the percent of student artifacts assessed below,
meeting, and exceeding teacher expectations for multiple years. Charts can be produced that show how
mastery of a standard is being developed throughout the curriculum. The visual impact is to immediately
convey whether there is proper scope and sequence within the curriculum to meet state and institutional
standards and whether the curriculum is helping students to achieve those standards.
After the first time they use the webfolio, the teacher gets ready for an upcoming term by taking a
few seconds to have the system copy materials and assignments from the previous term to the new
academic term. He or she then updates the course or unit of work as needed. The K-12 Webfolio system
maintains the teacher and student content both as it existed for the previous term and as it exists for the new
term. This assures that someone looking at a student’s work sample (artifact) several years later also will be
able to see the actual assignment as it existed when the student created the artifact. As an intended by-product of the process, the teacher’s course work continuously improves with the updates and curricular
modifications over time. The entire K-12 Webfolio process begins with the teacher preparing course and
unit content for their students before they arrive at school.
On the first day of class, students add the new courses and units of work prepared for them to their
webfolios by selecting from a list of teacher-generated courses and units of work. When registered for the
course, the student can then see every assignment, activity, and project listed in his or her webfolio’s table
of contents. That is, unless a teacher has decided to use the automatic scheduling feature to hide the
assignment from students until some later date. In that case, the assignments will appear in the students’
webfolios throughout the year on the teacher’s predetermined dates for specific assignments to appear.
Either way, when an assignment appears in the table of contents the description, models, resources and
rubric for assessment for each assignment are just a click away for every student in the class.
Invariably at least one student asks if the teacher will show the class examples from past students’ work.
Some students appear surprised at the glee with which teachers grant these requests, as they
simply call up past students’ work from the webfolio and orally comment on the qualities of the work done
by previous students. Although more subtle in approach, the teacher’s goal is the same as that of the early
twentieth century industrialist who took a piece of chalk and scrawled the night shift’s production number
on the factory floor for the morning shift to see how productive they had been that night. By sharing past
students’ work with current students, the teacher conveys and raises expectations as students will want to
work hard to meet or beat the previous piece of quality work.
A departmental rubric used to summarily assess students’ work in the K-12 Webfolio system.
The teacher selects a lock out date when she or he creates an activity. This is a date when the
system will “lockout” and no longer allow students to add content or modify their work in that section of
the webfolio. This “lockout” date is set for each artifact. After the “lockout” date, in order for the student
to be able to add or modify artifacts, the teacher has to go into the system and change the date to the
current day. Then, after the student has modified the artifact and the teacher has completed the assessment
of all students’ work, the students are finally “locked out” of the system so they cannot adjust their work
again. When all is finalized, the K-12 Webfolio administrator can export the data from the webfolio
system and prepare it for analysis.
Implementation Strategies
Sandholtz, Ringstaff & Dwyer (1997) indicate that teachers will not use technology unless they
believe it will make a difference in the quality of education provided to their students. This is number one
on the list of imperatives for implementing the a K-12 Webfolio system; convincing teachers that
implementation is in the best interests of the students they teach. At the same time, there needs to be an
“implementing force” that drives teachers to simply consider this proposition (Gathercoal, 1991). An
implementing force can be an idea, a policy, resources or some other motivating stimulus. Usually,
affecting faculty beliefs will go hand-in-glove with establishing an implementing force, but this need not
always be true.
At CLU the implementing force was a successful “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use
Technology” grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to submitting the grant, the authors took
its contents to a Teacher Preparation Department faculty meeting and presented all the goals and objectives
of the grant for faculty approval. Each goal was read and displayed and every faculty member was asked
whether he or she could live with the goal or objective or whether it needed changing. One of the
objectives read: To establish and use throughout the undergraduate and graduate programs an electronic
portfolio system that addresses specific competencies in the various disciplines and in the Teacher
Preparation Program. This objective passed the meeting unchallenged. This tacit approval from School of
Education (SOE) faculty and concomitant grant award provided the SOE with its implementing force and
belief system that the Webfolio system would work to benefit the education of all its students. It was a
natural progression to then develop the K-12 Webfolio System throughout the SOE’s K-12 partner schools.
Teacher beliefs need to be addressed first and they need to be addressed often. The
implementation process cannot address teacher beliefs once and think that it is finished. Teachers will
question the use of technology every step of the way. Those responsible for the implementation must be
knowledgeable of reasons why this technology is good for education and how it works in the best interests
of the K-12 students.
While continually addressing teacher beliefs and establishing an implementing force, the next step
is to break the implementation process into incremental units. Implementation should not try to do
everything at once. It is best to start small and expand. It will take time, so K-12 Webfolio advocates and
implementation personnel should be patient as the process will probably take years.
At CLU the implementation is just beginning with select partner schools and graduate students.
Presently, there are two entire schools, numerous teachers, preservice teachers and graduate students who
are teaching in K-12 schools who are using the K-12 Webfolio system. We begin small and expand.
Resource allocation and reallocation is critical to the implementation process, too. The
implementation process will need institutional backing and credentials. The administration of K-12
schools needs to “anoint” the process and its people and ensure that all who are involved know that the
implementation process is “approved.” It helps to give the process a name, at CLU the implementation is
called, “MAGNETIC CONNECTIONS” and the process champions are given “credentials” that set them
apart from other faculty. When the implementation process and its people are given titles and recognized
by the institution, the process finds a quick way of explaining away things that may not make sense. For
example, when it is announced that the Webfolio administrator will be team-teaching with teachers in the
middle school today, there are few questions asked about why or what. Simply mentioning the name
Webfolio administrator brings back visions of a commitment made to the implementation of the K-12
Webfolio system.
Successful implementation will demand that regular meetings are held to provide teachers with the
concepts and skills for successful implementation. All teachers need to attend these professional
development meetings, and there must be multiple sessions to accommodate the varied schedules of
teachers. The meetings should address both theory and practice. The meetings should be held during
regular teaching hours and the teachers should be paid to attend (if possible). K-12 Webfolio system
implementation should involve technology workshops and curriculum revision meetings throughout the
school year.
Chappell & Schermerhorn (1999) suggest five rules for implementation of electronic portfolios.
Rule 1: Electronic portfolio programs should be mandatory if they are to overcome
resistance on the part of many students who remain technically adverse…
Rule 2: Students must not be able to opt out of the program due to deficiencies in their
computer skills. These students must be encouraged to recognize their computer
shortcomings and catch up on their own time, with the help of computer lab assistants…
Rule 3: Students need to be challenged and encouraged to select their own materials to
include in the ESPs, as long as the required content areas are covered…
Rule 4: The portfolio program must run under defined deadlines, with regular feedback to
students. The provision of successful examples early in the process is helpful…
Rule 5: "Portfolio champions" must be involved from the initiation of the program to
ensure success and foster imitation. (p.658-660)
When implementing the K-12 Webfolio system, CLU’s SOE found that these rules were good caveats; but
strictly enforcing them was not a good idea. Respecting students’ and teachers’ needs and different
learning styles and the speed with which they come to terms with this new situation need to be valued and
respected. For example, some teachers and students may simply be “pushed out” of their schools because
of the K-12 Webfolio system. Holding a strict posture on these rules suggested by Chappell &
Schermerhorn (1999) will certainly effect the culture of the school and could “push” some out of education
for good. We have found that it is best to take a mentoring posture and help teachers and students to come
to terms with the new situation in their own time.
The K-12 Webfolio System in Practice
New technologies for enhancing the writing of secondary students can be facilitated through the
use of the K-12 Webfolio system. This is a prime example of K-12 school-university collaboration as well
as a demonstration of the use of advanced technologies. It also demonstrates the significance of ongoing
mentoring as a method for increasing the quality of student performance. This process enables the English
department in a secondary school to increase the rigor of writing expectations with a realistic prospect of
students’ ability to meet higher standards.
One project arose from a Service Learning assignment in a Special Education course. A CLU
graduate student, who is also a special education teacher, designed a service learning project involving the
webfolio. This project connected special education seniors with general education ninth graders. The two
teachers constructed a rubric and trained the special education students to use the rubric. That rubric was
used by students with special needs to give feedback on the writing of ninth graders. The special education
teacher constructed a course in the K-12 Webfolio system. The rubric resided in that online course. There
was also a place in the course for general and special education students’ reflective writing about the
process.
A second, similar project was part of a graduate reading course at CLU. The director of the
program, with the course instructor and a sixth grade teacher, created a webfolio course called “OWL”:
Online Writing Lab. They used a rubric currently applied in the local school district and trained the
graduate reading class to use it to give feedback on the writing of sixth grade English learners. The “OWL”
was constructed as a course in webfolio. The rubric resided in that course. There was also a place in the
course for written feedback between mentors and students.
It has been demonstrated that technology enhances communication between faculty and students
through use of electronic discussion groups, email and the use of portfolios when feedback is present
(Karayan, S. & Crowe, J., 1997). The inclusion of a rubric elevates that communication by focusing on
assessment and evaluation connected to writing standards. The use of portfolios across an extended time
period can construct an “organized, ongoing, and descriptive picture of the learning that is taking place”
(Farr, R. 1991). The intent of these applications is to provide consistent, ongoing, specific feedback to
student writers. “Strong portfolio systems are characterized by a clear vision of the student skills to be
addressed…use of criteria to define quality performance and provide a basis for communication, and self-reflection through which students share what they think and feel about their work, their learning
environment and themselves” (Arter, J., 1995). The skills addressed tied directly to the writing standards
for the targeted grade levels. The rubrics provided the mentors (grade 12 special education students and
graduate reading program students and the student writers (Grades 9 and 6) with clear criteria for the work.
In addition, student writers and mentors reflected in writing on the process.
Ascension Lutheran School is a private, Christian school that has grades Kindergarten through
eighth. The students in grades 6 th through 8 th are currently using the webfolio system in their social studies
class. With each chapter activities are added to the portfolio with the hope that at the end of the year the
students will be able to complete a showcase portfolio that shows evidence of how the students have met
California’s Learning Standards for their grade level. The showcase portfolio can be used in place of a
written final exam for the course, as well as, for later school wide accreditation reviews. It provides a view
of students work over time without having the issues related to storing traditional portfolios.
The webfolio is authentic assessment of students learning, promoting students to collaborate and
take creative approach to solving problems. Students beg to go the computer lab, so they can use the
system. The students have also found ways of using the system when it is not part of the lesson. One
student even taught her mother to use the system, so she could complete work in the higher education
version of the webfolio system used at California Lutheran University.
Next year the school plans on implementing the webfolio system throughout all of the academic
classes in 6 th through 8 th grades, as well as in their computer science class. The hope is to create integrated
and cross-curricular activities to promote higher order thinking skills. In the future the system will be
implemented into the elementary portion of the school. The hope is to provide evidence of the students
learning throughout their schooling. The webfolio system is an easy way for teachers to see what the
students have done in the past and gage their ability to meet expected learning standards.
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