How Can Electronic Portfolios Be Used for Formative Assessment?
This study showed how to augment the knowledge-building environment using an innovative formative assessment design that served to both characterize and scaffold knowledge building. It builds on a well-known approach to formative assessment called portfolio assessment. Hence, the formative assessments are called knowledge-building portfolios. Portfolio task. Portfolios usually consist of a selection of best items (e.g., papers, diaries, drawings) accompanied by a reflection statement explaining why students have selected these items as exemplary work and why they thought progress had been made. We asked students to prepare portfolio notes in Knowledge Forum as formal course assessments. To help them with the selection, we provided them with several knowledge-building principles. They selected exemplary notes in the computer discourse (similar to the selection of best items in portfolios) and wrote a statement (reflection) explaining why they thought these were their best notes in evide
