Curious case of portfolios replacing mark sheets and grades
It was just a week back when two of the young innovators I was working with through dHive had just finished tenth grade. They had a problem though. Inspite of their innovative skills and creative abilities, they were not able to replicate the results academically. They had scored around 55 and 65 percentages, and were looking for better opportunities. Admissions post X standard was turning out to be a big problem for them.
It was a straight no at most of the schools nearby. And at this junction we started thinking.
It was a great thing that the children were developing the innovative spirit, making machines and all that. But if it doesn’t help them climb up the ladder in some way, wouldn’t it be deemed futile?
Would they or their parents fail to realise the worth of what they are doing? It’s about the same time that we started thinking if there could be better means of evaluating such students who have shown greater merit?
To help them climb up the ladder, the children needed better metrics of assessment. To quantify them in a more appropriate manner. Mark sheets or grades were not enough. Do the mark sheets talk about the blood and sweat the kids spent tinkering to come up with something new?
That’s when the idea of documenting their work through portfolios came to our mind. The portfolio format gives a visual narrative to one’s work and if interwoven in a proper form stitched with love, it could make a big impact. Far more than what mark sheets or CVs can.
We taught the two students basic documentation through Powerpoint. They then assembled the pictures in a more aesthetic layout, putting all the necessary captions and converting that into the ‘portfolio’. We had this idea of sending it to our close associates involved in school managements across Maharashtra. We didn’t know if all that we are doing made any difference as a final conclusion would still be drawn on marks nevertheless.
Who would have thought that it would have worked? Infact, the chairman of a particular school was so impressed with the student’s work that they gave a full scholarship waiver to these two. He waived off their tuition, mess and the boarding acknowledging their humble backgrounds. Even inspite of the lowest cutoff for the eleventh standard being 85% for admission, the chairman was willing to bend the rules just so that these two students could get that opportunity.
That’s when the students realised that all those products which they had built, the junkyard sourcing, the jugaadu tech, even the ones which didn’t work had all contributed in one way or the other to make this happen. It was then that they blurted out the fact that their friends, and even their family were dismissive about them. Telling them not to waste time doing odd projects which were of no good. However, their portfolios were weaving another story altogether. Carefully handcrafted with love, containing interesting captions to the experiments and research that they had done before, the portfolio posed a powerful story of their encompassing work. They realised it’s importance when they got a scholarship because of that.
Not just Pawan (16) and Satish (16), even Pratik (14) received a full scholarship for his work through dHive. He becomes the first person from his tribal village to go all the way till Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh to learn Software engineering through Navgurukul. That too just having finished his eigth grade.
One just realises that in the platitude of mark sheets and grades, the students with their own unique portfolios, stand up. Like a blip in the radar.
Examinations are biased in terms of domain dependence, the real life potency is not assessed. For example, a chess player might be good in chess, but might fail when it comes to war strategy. Or take a brazillian jiu-jitsu champion for that matter, he might easily get knocked off when it comes to a street fight.
In a similar way, there is this domain dependence problem of the theoretical knowledge learnt in school to extend its scope outside to the practical — the real world. Where things are tried and tested, not just written and understood. There is an important need to evaluate the work done by the students in terms of not just mark sheets and other academic metrics, but also in terms of portfolios, CVs and statement of purpose. The purpose is not to increase the burden on the evaluators assessing the students, but to also comprehensively assess the students, especially when it comes to the premier institutes.
Probably on how you could assess the large segment of population taking all these metrics into consideration are the real question worth answering. The ‘revival’ of the education system. In this vein, through our dHive initiative, we have been trying to bridge that gap. There is a need to put all those academicians and policymakers in one roof. Only then might the serious flaws of the current educational system be dismantled and disintegrated. With the reinvigorated shift towards innovation and entrepreneurship right from childhood, the government of India through the Atal Innovation Mission’s ATLs have put innovation and creative thinking the prime spotlight. And it should be. Creativity is the new economy. With routine tasks slowly being taken over by robots, it’s the creative quotient that defines what we are that would define this coming economy.
However, at the same time the parents should not be expectant of the very same kids to ace the JEE exams as well. If despite of all their efforts, they are still evaluated purely on how well they fare the JEE exams, the parents might not be equally supportive of the children’s stance towards such project based learning.
Its a fallacy if you say — All those who ace the JEE exams would definitely be good at project-based learning. They need not be good at that. X and XII marks are not to be the litmus test of good education. With the acceptance of such marks to be a qualifying criterion for premier institutes such as IITs and IIMs, there would be immense parental pressure to perform well.
The system just needs a certain tweak, or a nudge in the right path. There should be essentially, a positive reinforcement to portfolios, which present what they have done. With this, the creative outliers will finally be able to stand out. To create and get noticed by the premier institutes. That would be a step in the right path. It’s with this hope that we see a world with more learning by doing.
The bird which attends the class should not be taught how to fly. There should be less of lecturing birds how to fly. We just have to aid them in flying better.
