This month, seniors at Ponaganset High School will be the first students in the state to be granted a diploma based, in part, on digital portfolios they have been working on since they were freshmen.
The technology, created by Providence-based Ideas Consulting Inc., is called Richer Picture and was developed over the last 15 years.
Ideas Consulting founder David Niguidula started his work on Richer Picture as a researcher at Brown University with the Coalition for Essential Schools and eventually developed the current version, which was ready for use four years ago.
“The interest on my end has always been helping schools in the process of reform. Portfolios can show a student can meet standards, but also who the student is as an individual learner,” Niguidula said. “And the portfolios allow us to collect data and allow teachers to look at their work and their students. … GPAs just don’t give you that level of detail.”
The portfolios allow students to enter their work under nine categories of “performance graduation expectations” that range from effective expression to positive health habits. The work they enter has been assigned with the intent of fulfilling one of the expectations, and when entered, students add a note about what they learned and how it relates to the specific expectation.
“It gives an opportunity for children to show and demonstrate their knowledge and skills,” said Michael Barnes, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the Foster-Glocester Regional School District.
He also echoed Niguidula’s view of it being a valuable tool for educators.
“The power of it is going to be how we use it in the school,” he said “It’s really giving us a tool to track students that are successful and those who are struggling and to respond accordingly.”
It also shows, he said, where the previous system was failing.
“We will see that wow, Jeff can’t really write, but Jeff would graduate under the old graduation requirements, and we’ve been graduating students like Jeff for 50 years,” Barnes said.
That scenario is exactly what the R.I. Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education wanted to address when it revamped graduation requirements in 2003. It required that schools find a way, by 2008, for students to show proficiency in math, English, social studies, science, arts and technology in order to graduate.
Although schools aren’t required to use the electronic portfolio system, 32 of the 39 districts have chosen to do so.
“This has been essential to the Regents’ agenda and the commissioner’s beliefs that we want to have graduation requirements that connect students to real-world learning, that are fair and accurate measures of the knowledge they’ve attained, that show what students know and how they can use that knowledge,” said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the R.I. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “The portfolio is a great example of that.”
Niguidula said he believes the portfolios will help ensure that students have what business leaders are looking for.
“In terms of the business community, we think this helps students take ownership in their own work and identify their own strengths and weakness, which we know is what employers are looking for,” he said. “Ponaganset is not a fluke. We are starting to see more and more interest in this.”
Ideas Consulting is currently working with schools in 14 districts in Rhode Island and in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and New York.
