Influence of cultural ethos on portfolio writing: reflection among faculty and students

Abstract

As times are changed, the change is fett in teaching-learning process too. Those days class rooms were teacher-centered. Students were at the receiving end. And they were expected to reproduce what they have received. Learning hardly had real life situations. They were content based and compartmentalized. But today's classrooms expect interactions, questioning, responding and reflecting on both sides. There is synergy of thoughts, ideas and intellectual expertise. Ultimately, today's teachers lend their hands towards bringing up productive citizens. A portfolio is a portable, systematic, purposeful collection of work, selected to provide information about attitude, level of development and growth during a given period of time. It is a powerful visual tool that provided evidence of personal reflections, learning growth and development and a comprehensive and complex overview of skills. The success of a learner lies on goal orientation. The goal oriented individual has to have a watch over on his progress. Portfolios provide students with the opportunity to see how they have progressed as learners. Students begin to reflect on their strengths as a learner, areas where they need to improve, what constitutes quality work and how their work reflects the expected standards. Here portfolio is a tool for self-monitoring and self-evaluation and it is useful as a 'marketing tool' in the job search process. Today's classroom environment reflects the cultural ethos. The tone and the style of the message the teacher carries to his class, his expertise in the Meld, and integrity reflect in the success of his teaching. He has to have teaching goals, teaching philosophy and design for learner's portfolio. Maintaining portfolio writing both on the part of teacher as well as the learner develop healthy learning culture towards social development It results in development of human resources for economic development of the country.