Enabling All Students to Learn Through Assessment

Abstract

Communicating with students in today's high school science classroom is challenging for teachers because the majority of them speak only English. Many of their students, however, do not speak English as their primary language. This creates an instructional barrier across the content areas, and especially in science where much of the learning is abstract and hard to grasp for those who do not speak the language of instruction well. In this article, the author shares that using portfolios has helped her overcome the challenge of preparing preservice teachers of secondary science in the state of Utah in 2004. In many school districts throughout Utah the percentage of English language learner Latino students is around 40 percent of the total population. In this article, the author cites the benefits of using portfolios for instruction. She also provides ideas on how to use portfolios in instruction. (Contains 2 figures.)