Portfolio Development in Japanese Higher Education

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A portfolio is a collection of work, compile from representative selections based upon specific criteria. A portfolio provides tangible evidence of professionals' as well as learners' growth and achievement. Among many methods of performance assessment, portfolio has been one of the most widely used in school settings in the North America today. Portfolios serve many divers purposes and levels in American higher education, including institutional promotional materials to personal Web pages, faculty tenure review dossies and career planning document. It is used in all disciplines in universities in the US.This research intended to gain a deeper understanding of the potentials of portfolio use in higher education by extensive literature reviews and site visits to several universities in the US. It was also an attempt to develop prototypes of portfolios to be used in Japanese universities. The Chapters 1 through 5 of this report introduce examples of (1)writing portfolios, (2)course portf … More olios and (3)learning portfolios in various colleges and universities in the US. In Chapter 6, the details of portfolios used in two sections of the freshmen seminars in a large research university in Japan were provided. The Japanese translation of a manual title as "Portfolio development for promotion and tenure"(Center for Academic Excellence, 1997) is presented in Chapter 7. In addition, two prototypes of portfolios for faculty evaluation were proposed.The most valuable aspects of portfolio assessment is that it links assessment with instruction. With increased pressure for better understanding of Japanese college students' learning and external pressure for accountability of Japanese higher education, it was suggested that portfolios would become a powerful tool for making Japanese college students to engage active learning and fostering their reflective thinking. To make the portfolio more useful, a thoughtful sample of the learner's work with an explanation of the selection process and agreed-upon appropriate scoring guides are necessary. Less