THE USE OF THE PORTFOLIO IN THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS

The portfolio exists since long ago in several fields unconnected with education. It comes from the world of the art, especially, from the architecture and the design, and it is used to present the works of the artists, showing the achievements of the creative talent to the public. Nevertheless, the use of the portfolio in the educational area is recent. According to some authors it originated in the seventies in the North American schools because of the appearance of dissatisfaction atmosphere which was caused by the utilization of quantitative methods in the educational assessment. Though, in spite of being a recent phenomenon, it is achieving more and more popularity.
The concept refers to a deliberated and organized compilation of evidences of diverse type (diaries, essays, stories, field notes, pictures…) that allow to construct meanings. It means a reflection process that entails the analysis, review, assessment … of self experiences and evidences (not only collect them).
So, the portfolio constitutes an ideal tool in the teaching-learning process, which makes possible the self assessment (to think how you have learned), beside allowing to develop an authentic assessment, because it reports on the constructed knowledge and the acquired skills with more realism, something that is difficult of achieving with traditional assessment instruments which contribute to a fragmented vision.
In connection with that, the aim of our work is to make an analysis about the contributions of the portfolio to the teaching-learning process, trying to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the didactic use.
We will begin our work with a conceptualization of this tool, through the carrying out of a review of the contributions made by different authors. Later, we will talk about the typology, the phases in the construction process, the educational applications, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that it has.