Assessment - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 194

Activity 85: Analysis of a Grading Policy of the Group Project
The grading policy presented in Table 10.1 for grading software projects
developed by teams is presented to the students in the MTCS course. They
are asked to work in small teams and:
• To analyze its advantages and disadvantages.
• To describe how it may influence team members' behavior and
collaboration.
• To explain how it enables to achieve both group and personal interests.
Such a discussion raises the prospective CS teachers' awareness to the
multifaceted nature of the development process of software projects by
teams, and to the different considerations they should address in the evalu-
ation process of such projects.
10.4 Portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of learners' works which reflects learners' progress and
achievements in a specific domain along the learning process. Since a portfolio is
prepared by the learners along a period of time, it can be viewed as a formative
assessment tool (see Sect. 10.3) and it is important to consider its position and role
when a teaching process is planned (see Chap. 11).
In more detail, a portfolio is a purposeful collection of student's works that tells
the story about learner's efforts, progress, achievement, and self-reflection on his or
her learning process and progress, in one or more knowledge areas. The portfolio
content should be selected and decided upon together with the learner and, as with
respect to other evaluation tools, its evaluation criteria should be clear to the learners
from the early stages of the portfolio construction process (Arter and Spandel 1992 ).
This description implies that the portfolio items should not be selected randomly,
but rather, that they should be carefully chosen together by the teacher and the pupil
in a way that indicates that learning occurred, represents the learner's achievements
and progress, and reflects the learner's knowledge and skills with respect to specific
domains. In addition to learners' products and other teachers' evaluation tools of
the learner's learning process, a portfolio can include teachers' observation during
the learning process, peer reviews, and the learners' suggestions for how to continue
their learning process of the said topic. Patton and McGill ( 2006 ) reported on the
use of portfolio in a CS course. They mentioned the pedagogical advantages of
using portfolio, among them the ability to conduct a longitudinal study of student
performance, course assessment, and the prevention of cheating.
These characteristics of the portfolio make it a pedagogical tool that:
• Integrates learning with assessment
• Creates a continuous communication and collaboration channel between teach-
ers and learners