Academic portfolios

The main purpose of an academic or student portfolio (not to be confused with a profesional or teaching portfolio) is to communicate both the processsss and the status of a student's academic development, performance and achievement in a particular class, subject, or overall education. The following are the primary types of academic portfolios:

Integrated Portfolio

The integrated portfolio includes a collection of students’ work in some or all subject areas. The purpose of this portfolio is to show student performance in the various disciplines and highlight the connections between each discipline. Student reflections include a description of how subject areas overlap in school and in the real world, why they chose this particular artifact, and what goals should be set.

Project Portfolio

The Project Portfolio captures the planning sequence, implementation steps and evaluation criteria of one or more projects completed by students.

College Admission Portfolio

A College Admission Portfolio contains selections of student’s best work in high school. This portfolio may be used by colleges and universities to further evaluate the preparedness of students for college and their potential contribution. This portfolio contains the best of students academic work as well as their extracurricular and community activities. For arts and media colleges, the admission portfolio is often a smaller or less developed version of a working artist's portfolio in the desired field of study.