Monday, September 19, 2011

Last Year's Portfolios

After looking over half of the portfolios from last year’s class, I can’t say if there is one specific formula for what makes one great. There were several who decided to make their different sections very wordy and it worked for me, while the longer sections tended to bore me in others and I would find myself losing interest quickly. Admittedly, biases probably played a bit of a role since the first ones I looked at were teachers with whom I had taught the previous year or whom I had gotten to know through other circumstances. It should probably be no surprise that the people with more verbose sections in their portfolios who could also keep my attention tended to be English teachers. I suppose they are naturally more magician-y (word?) with words. 
Perhaps this speaks more to my ADHD personality, but I that found the portfolios with chunks of words in short mini-paragraphs were much more enjoyable reads. Pictures also helped out with keeping my interest. The photo essays were done in one of two ways: individual shots where you could scroll down and look at them all or in a slideshow format. Of course, both ways had room for their own creative twist. I think the best way to approach that would be to offer both methods. It has also brought to my attention that I need to be thinking of different types of pictures I want to take that include my students, colleagues, and community. 
Videos are also an intriguing aspect to these portfolios. Of the portfolios I looked at, the videos were well-done. I can understand the allure of simply doing videos in most sections so as to save you the time of writing things, but none of the portfolios overused any videos. Every time I came across one in a portfolio, it seemed novel and a nice change from reading the text. I saw that when students were involved, it threw in a humorous twist because they either ham it up or try to act real tough on camera. If I were to interview students, it would probably have to be at the end of the year when things become a little more lax. I will definitely incorporate at least one video into my portfolio, though I’m not sure where, but I will also be conscious that they should be used carefully.  
Viewing last year’s portfolios has really brought a lot of ideas to my mind, but it has also let me know that I have a lot of things to think about.