Students who have little experience creating portfolios may need help and practice in the following skills:

Developing a collection

Students may be unfamiliar with the term "artifact" and may be unsure of what they should or could collect in a portfolio. Unlike conventional portfolios, the Catalyst Portfolio tool provides students the opportunity to collect a wide range of digital objects - text documents, photos, images, audio files, video files, or Web pages. Encourage students to think broadly and creatively about the kinds of evidence that might best illustrate their skills, thinking, accomplishments, or interests. You might also design assignments that illustrate to students the value of different types of artifacts.

Selecting artifacts for a purpose

Help students identify criteria for selecting artifacts related to the purpose of the portfolio. For example, do students wish to illustrate a theme? Demonstrate their skills? Outline steps in a process? Which items from their collection are the best examples for their intended purpose? Students may need help developing criteria to guide selection.

Writing about an artifact

Essential to a successful portfolio is the ability to effectively describe an artifact and tell what is significant about it. Students can address how the artifact is relevant to the purpose of the portfolio as a whole. Students may have little practice reflecting thoughtfully on their work. You may wish to include questions or prompts in your Portfolio project that teach and scaffold the kind of thinking you want your students to eventually demonstrate on their own.

Considering audience

Portfolios are tools for conversation; students should be able to tailor a portfolio to communicate with different audiences. Provide opportunities for students to consider how, for instance, an instructor, advisor, potential employer, or best friend might respond to the artifacts and structure of their portfolio, the language and content of their reflections, and the look and feel (design) of the portfolio.

Drawing interdisciplinary connections

It may be desirable in a portfolio for students to draw connections across different disciplines and/or realms of student life - academic, personal, experiential. You may wish to ask students to find themes that run through these different arenas, or to consider how each arena contributes to what the student wants to demonstrate through the portfolio. For example, portfolios can be especially effective for documenting learning in the field. In this case, students must be able to clearly articulate, and illustrate through artifacts, how their field experiences helped them to achieve course objectives.

Understanding what successful portfolios look like

It is highly recommended that you provide multiple examples of successful portfolios and/or portfolio entries (reflections on work) for your students. If you are creating a Portfolio project for the first time, you may not have examples of student work to share. In this case, it is useful to create an example yourself. This will help both you and your students understand the assignment and the criteria you will use to evaluate their work.