Reflective Journals and Portfolios: learning through assessment

Some see assessment and learning as two separate entities. However, others believe that when assessment and learning become united there is an added strength that shows that the combination is more than the individual parts. With individualised teaching and learning also being the prime concern of many educators it follows that individualised assessment also will need to be addressed. It is with this premises in mind that reflective journalling portfolio assessment have been developed in the Bachelor of Teaching course at University of Western Sydney, Macarthur (Australia). We have developed an assessment procedure through the use of reflective journals and portfolios that allows our final semester students to track their growth and development throughout the course as well as their personal understandings of what it is to be a teacher. Students who have completed this assessment have commented that they have learned more through this assessment than from any other such activity. I believe that this is because in order to complete their portfolio they have to demonstrate their learning through substantiation of criteria and then they have to orally defend their position to a committee. This paper explores these processes by examining the current procedures, discussing the current thinking and pulling together the ideal and the practical. Once the parameters have been established, the steps that have been taken towards assessment that is both a learning process and is focused on the individual in preservice education (B.Teach) in the University of Western Sydney will be discussed.