Philosophical
match

The marriage between portfolio development and adult literacy programming appears to be a good one, given the current emphasis on accountability, outcome-based education and alternative assessment. Portfolios reflect the Core Quality Standards and respond to the systemwide objectives for the adult literacy education system in Ontario.

Hanna Arlene Fingeret of Literacy South in Durham, North Carolina, believes that to be effective, using portfolios for assessment must match a program's philosophy. She writes,

Portfolio assessment is most congruent with whole language, learner centered and participatory approaches to instruction. It assumes a concern with literacy tasks and practices, and an emphasis on meaning. Portfolio assessment is most effective for examining individual and group development of literacy practices, and for ongoing instructional and curriculum decisions. It should be only one part of a larger, multifaceted assessment and evaluation process.²⁹

If this is the case, programs must examine their philosophies and practices to be consistent with portfolio assessment. It is not enough just to collect materials in a folder and call it a portfolio or to list discrete skills and call them outcomes.

As Spady and Marshall write, "Transformational OBE [outcome-based education] has its roots in the future-scanning procedures found in well-designed strategic planning and design models."³⁰ So too, literacy practitioners in Ontario should refer to the Accountability Framework and Core Quality Standards for adult literacy