Deeper Learning Through Portfolio-Defense

Overview Videos of Portfolio-Defense in Action

  1. Defense Montage
  2. Yvonne’s Journey to a Defense
  3. Tiana’s Journey to a Defense (shows a student failing her first attempt and having to resubmit)
  4. Video: Teachers and Staff Prepare for Portfolio Defenses

Readings that Argue the Rationale of Portfolio-Defense

  1. An EdWeek article on the Virtues and Vices of Portfolio Assessment
  2. Account of a student failing a defense, and looking back on his experience: Kaleb’s Story, from Transforming Schools
  3. How Portfolio-Defense Can Benefit a School
  4. Teaching Channel article, Reflect on Learning with a Portfolio Defense by Abby Benedetto
  5. An EdWeek blog on the power of defenses of learning
  6. Should high school students have to ‘defend’ their diploma like a Ph.D? – Hechinger Report (article featuring a school ELP has been coaching in LA)
  7. Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards, new book by Bob Lenz, Justin Wells, and Sally Kingston on school design around a portfolio-defense system

The Envision Schools Performance Assessment System

  1. Envision Graduate Profile
  2. College Success Portfolio Handbook
  3. Envision-SCALE Performance Task Rubrics

Examples of Non-Envision Portfolio-Defense Systems

  1. Los Angeles Unified Portfolio-Defense System
  2. Johnson Corporate Business Academy, Sacramento
  3. Los Angeles High School of the Arts Handbook
  4. Community Health Advocates School, LAUSD

Evaluating Defenses (and Calibrating Staff on Scoring)

  1. Video: Calibration – Assessing Porfolio Defenses (watch teachers get trained on how to score a defense)
  2. Defense Scoring Protocol, (in Word)
  3. Advise designing one of these for your school: Defense Notetaker, (in Word)
  4. Example Defense Agenda
  5. Envision Defense Rubric, (in Word)
  6. Another Defense Rubric Example (simpler and more flexible), (in Word)
  7. Video Example of a Panel Deliberation – Tarshea (password: elp)
  8. Video Example of a Panel Deliberation – Gibran

Examples of Graduate Profiles

  1. Envision Schools
  2. Pasadena Unified
  3. Houston School District
  4. Johnson Corporate Business Academy
  5. SEEQS
  6. School of Engineering and Sciences

More Videos of Students Defending

  1. Gabi – Envision 12th grader
  2. Isaiah – 10th grader at Kamaile Academy, small school on Oahu serving Native Hawaiian youth (password: elp)
  3. Frankie – Envision 12th grader (IEP student)
  4. Sam – Envision 12th grader – defending an internship experience
  5. Janette – Envision 12th grader (password: educate400)
  6. Gibran – Envision 10th grader
  7. Darius – Envision 12th grader (good one to challenge you)
  8. Tarshea – Envision 12th grader

Middle School Examples

  1. Ka Waihona Charter School
  2. SEEQS Portfolio-Defense Handbook

Background: Envision Education

The mission of Envision Education is to transform the lives of students—especially those who will be the first in their family to attend college—by preparing them for success in college and in life.

Brief Video Overview of Envision

Envision Schools: Over the last decade, Envision has garnered national recognition for its three charter high schools in the Bay Area of California: City Arts & Technology High School, Envision Academy of Arts & Technology, and Impact Academy of Arts & Technology. Envision Schools employ proven high school redesign practices in an innovative model that emphasizes project-based learning, deeper learning (aka 21st Century) skills, arts and technology integration, and workplace learning. Student success at Envision Schools is based on a unique and innovative deeper learning student assessment system, aligned to both the Common Core and deeper learning skills that culminates in a student defense akin to a dissertation defense. To graduate, Envision students are required to defend a portfolio of college-ready work that is certified by teachers based on rubrics validated by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE).

Envision Learning Partners: In 2010, Envision Education launched Envision Learning Partners (ELP) to spread its learning and impact to interested schools and districts across the country. ELP partners with K-12 schools and districts nationwide to collaboratively design and implement the Envision Schools Transformation Model or requested components of it. Currently, ELP’s impact reaches over 1,000 teachers and leaders from over 100 schools of all types (e.g., public, independent, charter) and at all levels (elementary, middle, and high schools) in 7 states. Read more . . .

© Envision Learning Partners 2015