Student-Led Portfolio-Based Conferences

Vergennes Union High School (VUHS) is now writing a new set of performance-based graduation requirements that will open up multiple pathways for students and ensure that each graduate can apply the skills learned in high school. Our students must be able to function in the complex educational and employment world that awaits them. By giving students an active voice in what they study and how they demonstrate their learning we will engage students more deeply in their own education.

I believe the creation of a rigorous and individualized system for graduation will be a means to work collaboratively to build understanding and respect among faculty across core subjects. This effort should also create opportunities for interdisciplinary themes, and possibly courses. The performance tasks all students select for the online portfolios they will create as part of this process will also require them to self-assess their work and to demonstrate their learning using real world tools.

For my project I want to explore a specific way to increase the percentage of students pursuing post-secondary education by linking technology integration, student self-assessment, and the proposed performance-based graduation requirements. This linking will be in the form of the electronic online student portfolios and other means to aid students in demonstrating skills, knowledge and mastery. I believe that this would dovetail nicely with the instructional practices that we are using at VUHS: Formative Assessment Practices, Understanding by Design, and, at the middle school, Expeditionary Learning, which all emphasize the student’s role in constructing knowledge. My project will also support our strong emerging advisory (Morning Meeting) and Call-Back systems which will facilitate the success of all students as they create a personal learning plan and eventually run student-led, portfolio-based conferences. The experience of reflecting upon and presenting their learning, repeated throughout their high school years, will help them to articulate their strengths, remain actively engaged in their own schooling, and raise their post-high school aspirations.

VUHS faculty developed nine different areas in which learners will demonstrate mastery of content and skills. These Performance Based Graduation Requirements (PBGRs) reflect the 21st Century skills:

In order to graduate, each VUHS learner creates and maintains a Graduation Portfolio that documents evidence of skills, knowledge, and enduring understanding as an autonomous, lifelong learner. The Graduation Portfolio must show proficiency in each of the following requirements. Each learner will give a final presentation and defense of their portfolio in their senior year.

The work of developing the PBGR system has become a means for us to work collaboratively to build understanding and respect among faculty across core subjects. We are looking to create opportunities for interdisciplinary themes, and possibly courses. Our work of developing a performance based graduation system is just beginning. Over the next 6 years, the staff will work with students and families to define the “evidence” that students will create to show that they are ready to graduate. These pieces of evidence that students select for their portfolios of academic success will also require them to self-assess their work and to demonstrate their learning using real world tools. Our advisory (Morning Meeting) and Call-Back systems are becoming more comprehensive as we seek to create opportunities which will facilitate the success of all students as they create a personal learning plan and eventually run student-led, portfolio-based conferences.

Each graduating class for the next 6 years will participate in some aspect of the new PBGR system. The Class of 2016 will be the first class expected to graduate based on successful performances of the PBGRs.