Authentic Learning with Portfolios: A Combination that K-12 Education Needs

Abstract

Education systems play a critical role in sustaining a society by equipping citizens with the mindsets and skills necessary for professional and personal success. The American K12 education system has unfortunately not kept pace though with the demands of the 21st century. Students need systemic changes that make learning more meaningful and more engaging of their existing skills and interests. Authentic learning practices, like Project-Based, Community-Based, and Work-Based Learning, make such changes by orienting instruction around topics relevant to students' experiences and allowing students to practice their knowledge in real-world settings. Schools can encourage the adoption of authentic learning by implementing a complementary practice like portfolios. Local successes in schools using authentic learning and portfolios separately demonstrate their joint viability, but a system that combines the practices and can scale nationally has yet to be discovered.

Using the local "existence proofs" as starting points, I developed a system architecture that addresses many known barriers to adoption, including the time/resource constraints of schools, colleges, employers and the inequitable access some students have to engaging learning experiences. This initial proposal did not, however, address constraints imposed by schools' accountability obligations nor stakeholders' uncertainty over their peers' readiness to adopt the system. By investigating how federal and state policies have enacted similar transformations, I determined that authentic learning portfolios will likely require government mandates. These mandates could face pushback, however, from families concerned that the proposal would hurt their student's college options. I also interviewed colleges to establish what changes to the proposal were needed to ensure their support and thus satisfy parents' concerns. My findings helped refine the proposed system architecture as well as outline the next steps needed to successfully implement the proposal.