Digital Mathfolios in the Lower School

Lower School teacher, Marnie McDonald  had been using paper portfolios and digital portfolios for many years with her students, when she asked herself, “ How could a process “mathfolio” tell the story of the growth of my math students?” It was her  belief that every student should have a collection of personal bests–a cloud-based story of their development and artifacts of accomplishment that was easily shareable and organized for presentation.

When starting the portfolio process, McDonald kept it simple. "I started with a single unit. I determined goals and purpose for the portfolio, created a checklist and explained the process to students. I encouraged them to take an active role in the development of their portfolios. What I discovered is a  valuable and meaningful evaluation tool that effectively assesses student learning in math.  These portfolios offered insight into my student's thinking, understanding, and mathematical problem-solving skills, and offered a picture of the student's progress in math."  The students thought it was a great process too.  Here is what some of them had to say: Max reports, "I liked that I could be creative in math." Dominic adds, "It was challenging for me to do the polygons, but I actually learned them by doing them over and over again."  And Sarah states, "I loved designing my own dream home. I calculated the area and perimeter for each room. This did not make it into the portfolio but it was awesome."

Click here to see the results.