The digital portfolio as a medium for school change
Throughout the process of creating a digital portfolio, the MIENC partnership organizations are guided by the RUBRICS CUBE criteria in order to organize rich collections of inter-related artifacts. In this context, compelling artifacts that illustrate the progress of leadership team action research processes are just as important as those that constitute evidence of quality of curriculum design outcomes or provide benchmarks for meeting student learning school improvement goals through music. Documentation methodologies function as positive and powerful tools that assist planning and clarify thinking, and provide considerable grist for the mill of policy decisions and change. Evaluation methods provide evidence of program cohesion and the relationship between program excellence and equity among all learners. The intensive and collaborative assessment of student work can intensify the focus on cognitive, aesthetic, and social-emotional aspects of learning through music.
Thus, as a living and interactive archive of multiple aspects of program development, inter- artifacts organized in dynamic relation to one another provide new tools for teaching others, sharing inquiry questions, testimony of success, or evidence of change. The carefully chosen artifact as a catalyst for student-teacher-administrator conversation elevates RUBRICS CUBE portfolio conferences to a new level of importance for distributed learning that informs innovation or the re-formation of practices within and across consortium organizations.
