?'s about evaluations

[Zoo Keeper]

Last year we did the Stanford test, but this year we are doing a portfolio review. It asks for a quarterly evaluation for each subject---anyone else have any ideas on how to go about this? What kind of a standard should I use in evaluating? I don't issue grades, so I can't just slap down some numbers and average out to a letter grade. ANY ideas? :confused:

[Zoo Keeper]

Anyone have any ideas? Pretty please? :)

[lionfamily1999]

Does your state have standards of learning? Did you turn in an outline of what you would be doing this year?

 

I've never done a portfolio (although I'm seriously considering one for this year). Our hs liason recommended either using the SOLs as a jumping off point (showing that he has met them) or else going through the outline I turned in and showing either final tests, or examples of work from the beginning of the year compared to work later in the year.

 

Of course, never having done this, I'm hopefully wrong enought that lots of other posters can pop in and tell us both how it should be done (we can hope, anyway :p ).

[Zoo Keeper]

Thanks for chiming in, Julie. Two heads are better than one. Maybe we can both get a few more heads to help us out.... I think I need a nine-headed Hydra to help me think tonight :tongue_smilie:.

[lionfamily1999]

:lol:

[Zoo Keeper]

Okay, I'l try again this morning, since no one is busy watching LOST now. ;)

 

l

[happyhomemaker25]

I'm not exactly sure what your state is looking for.

In FL we just have to show forward progression.

I keep all of their work in a notebook and when our review is up I use our pastor's wife (a state certified teacher) to review it and she signs off.

I don't have to use all of our work, but it's just easier to keep it all together.

I think the hesitancy in not responding is that states are different. The above is just what I do for FL.

[Zoo Keeper]

Thanks for your reply; any suggestions are better than the vast nothingness that my brain was giving me...:)

[lionfamily1999]

BUMP BA BUMP BUMP

 

Someone must know what goes into a portfolio.

 

:lurk5::bigear:

[happyhomemaker25]

I looked up Maine Portfolio evaluations and it looks a lot like FL.

The best thing to do is to pick your evaluator and then ask her what she wants to see. Evaluators are different. I have had two and they both wanted different things.

Here is what I do.

At the beginning of the year I tear up all of their books. Then I place the pages in a notebook seperated by subjects. As we do the pages we pull them out. When they are done they go back in. Boom. My portfolio is done.

I print off the list of books we have out from the library every month and put those in the portfolio for the reading list.

If I want to add pictures from projects, field trips.... I just take one day a month and put those in for the month. Sometimes I don't and I have never had a problem.

I make up a list of "field trips" at the beginning of the year and then just put dates next to them when we do them. Of course I tend to count the grocery store and other errands as field trips.

I don't keep grades and I have never had a problem.

It all depends on your evaluator. One of my evaluators wanted at least 12 pieces of work from each subject, three writings from 4th grade and up and some other stuff.

My evaluator now likes to just flip through the NB and see what we are doing. Easy peasy.

Double check because that was just me googling for a few minutes this morning. I could be way off base. :tongue_smilie:

[Zoo Keeper]

Thanks, happyhomemaker, for doing some digging around for me. I do appreciate the time you took to help (that's why I keep coming back to these boards--the great people:)). I got in touch with a leader from a homeschool group and she told me that couple sentences for each subject for each quarter was fine. Something as simple as "Johnny finished 3 units of his math book and has shown understanding of odd/even concepts and two-digit addition" is ok. Those few sentences and some pages from each workbook (or other examples of work) should be adequate to show that the child is progressing at an "age appropriate level."

 

That was greatly reassuring for me; I have been trying to decipher the gobbeldy gook about state learing objectives and all the other NCLB gunk that I dug up on the state website. What a headache. I'm glad it doesn't have to be that technical to get the job done.