Introduction
Key Components
Themes and underlying aspects
Examples of projects for Entry 1 portfolios
Gathering evidence
Samples of student work
General Project Data
Telling your story through a written narrative

"Coming up with these new opportunities is definitely broadening everyone's knowledge. In school you do your bookwork, but we’ve gotten a chance to do a lot more in school relating to our lives. I’ve done research on the farming and what affects it-'cause you know, that affects my family and me-and I’ve learned a lot about what is actually happening. I did a paper on corporate farming a year ago, and I did my term paper this year on ountry-of-origin meat labeling. It opened my eyes to why some of the things are happening, the falling prices and that kind of thing."

—Chris, Student

We of course needed the community’s input for everything, because that’s just the way it worked. We all, the 12 of us, met many times throughout the summer, and we also met with the community, and in the end we presented this final plan, and it was approved. It was quite different to be one of the only students on a complete adult committee, and to be working with them, side-by-side, meeting-by-meeting. It really makes a person feel like they’re important, and that they’re doing something worthy."

—Whitney, Student

"You talk about academics as all kinds of things that you can excel in, and be known the world over because of an academic standard. But to think what these kids did for our area deserves the same praise. Under very good supervision, they went out and started a project from grounds up, and the uniqueness of the whole thing is how it was done. It was our kids, in our community, visiting with our community members on what they do with their income and their life, what they think of things, what they think of the community, and [they] brought that perspective back in a package form to be presented to the community."

—Jim Mutzinger, Farm Grain Coop and School Committee Member

—Howard High School, Howard, South Dakota

Place-based education prizes rigorous student learning that taps student voice and leadership and is connected to the community. This entry offers a vehicle for demonstrating when such learning is occurring and reflecting on what stands in the way when it is not—plus it offers an important opportunity to make a case for "learning in place."

Key Components

Entry 1 has two specific purposes:

• First, to present evidence that students are
  • doing academic work that draws upon and contributes to the place in which they live; and
  • practicing new skills and responsibilities, serving as scholars, workers, and citizens in their community.
• Second, to analyze, through the lens of selected student work,
  • how student understanding and proficiency in relation to the topic/project at hand are changing and growing; and
  • how the work is contributing more generally to both student intellectual growth and community "capital".

The themes and underlying aspects are:

Theme 1: Student Intellectual Growth

• Promotes deep about important content
• Promotes student ownership and control

Theme 2: Academic Rigor of the Project

• Engages students in investigation, inquiry, and problem solving
• Establishes clear and challenging learning goals
• Enhances student learning through materials, resources, and support

Theme 3: Authenticity of the Project

• Addresses a real community need or interest
• Helps students take on community roles
• Engages students in real work that produces results
• Develops students' appreciation and understanding of place

Theme 4: Assessment Practices

• Involves all participants in assessing learning
• Relies on multiple sources of information to assess learning
• Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning

Selecting a project on which to focus

Choose a single placed-based learning initiative that your group is currently engaged in or has completed within the past six months—one whose substance and duration make it suitable for examining in depth. Since the entry you create must speak to the themes and aspects just listed, the project you choose should be one that has set its sights on most, if not all, of these goals.

Examples of projects for Entry 1 portfolios:

WEB PAGE DESIGN
Designing and maintaining their school's website, along with a number of county-wide sites, has become the sole focus of students enrolled in Wartburg Central High School's "web page design" class. Working with faculty, students, and community members throughout Morgan County, the students offer a comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and resources to help teachers teach, students learn, and parents parent, as well as a cornucopia of information on local attractions from the Wartburg Castle to the Obed ("wild and scenic") River.

VOICES OF THE VALLEY
Each year since 1997, students in Anderson Valley, helped by their teacher and community volunteers, have collected the stories and voices of local elders and published them in bound volumes. With an eye to broad representation, they have taped, transcribed, and edited interviews with over 100 locals; the students' work also shows up in audio tapes and CD's. Classes in oral history are now a regular part of the school curriculum.

EYE ON GUFFEY NEWS MAGAZINE
Published bi-monthly by students at Guffey Charter School in Colorado, this magazine is the town of Guffey's sole source of printed community news. Guided by their teachers and a local journalist, students create each issue from start to finish, developing and writing stories and other articles, soliciting and designing ads, preparing the layout, and overseeing printing and distribution.

Gathering evidence

Your task, now, is to gather evidence linked to the project you have selected—evidence that speaks persuasively to the placed-based learning and student contributions this project has stimulated around the themes and aspects that concern Entry 1. The cornerstones of this evidence, which will in turn support your narrative, include the following.

Instructional and assessment materials

Teaching and learning go hand-in-hand. Looking closely at students' learning and contributions requires an understanding of the instructional context guiding their efforts. In the case of place-based learning, the process is often iterative: instructional goals and frameworks may change or evolve in response to changing circumstances, including student input.

The challenge here is to choose a small set of materials that illustrate the project's instructional framework and, where appropriate, midcourse changes. Examples include a syllabus, one or two sample lesson plans, some assignments, directions that were provided to students to get them started, a guide sheet for how students should approach one or another aspect of their work. (These materials could have been generated by students or community members as well as by teachers.) Keep an eye out for examples that show the challenge and rigor of what's being asked of students. Teacher or other adult reflections on how learning and teaching have evolved together would also make valuable evidence.

Instruction and student assessment also go hand-in-hand. Collect a small group of assessment artifacts that best illustrate expectations for students' work, along with the feedback they received. Examples include scored rubrics, corrected student work with instructions to students, notes from a student conference where his or her work was reviewed. Choose assessments that ask students to demonstrate their understanding through application or analysis and not simply factual recall.

Samples of student work

One of the best ways to get a feel for student learning is to examine samples of work, over time, from a few students. As part of this entry, we ask that you first select a minimum of two students who represent a range of learners and that you then pull together a small set of work for each one over an extended period of time.

What sort of student work? It may include more traditional items, such as research reports, or be less traditional-for example, a videotape of a student-led discussion with community members or "concept maps" that demonstrate student understanding of key terminology and ideas. The work need not be elaborate or "perfect." Rather, it should accurately reflect the students' capacities and progress. It should also reveal their sense of ownership and investment in the project.

When selecting students, think about the diversity of student participants and pick students with different needs, abilities, and interests. Do not choose only your strongest students or best writers; ironically, they may not provide the best opportunity to exhibit substantial development over time.

For the selected students, choose work samples from at least two different points in time that, taken together, show intellectual growth. The first point in time will supply baseline data for later comparisons. There are several ways to approach this, but two good strategies are:

• The 3 X 2 approach: Select three students, and for each student, select two student work samples, collected at two different points in time.
• The 2 X 3 approach: Select two students, and for each student, select three student work samples, collected at three different points in time.

If student roles and tasks in the project varied substantially, it might help to show more students-the 3 X 2 approach. If student learning was notably incremental, you will need to show the growth in learning across more points of time. In this case, choose the 2 X 3 approach. If possible, select student work samples from different students from approximately the same points in time.

Your task is thus twofold: to choose the students and the work they did that, taken together build your case richly and economically.

General project data in relation to student learning and contributions

In addition to analyzing the growth of a few students over time, you will also need to provide some evidence that speaks more broadly to the project's impact on students overall. For example, when addressing issues like "Student Ownership," and "Authenticity," you will need to collect evidence that support generalizations about the students' experiences and learning as a whole. Such data sources could include:

• Student reflections or interviews - to illustrate learning growth and the learning process, as well as to show student contributions to the project design and implementation
• Parent/community reflections or interviews - to illustrate the adult's role in the project, as well as their perceptions of the project's effectiveness in facilitating student learning
• Evidence of dialogue that occurred between teacher and student (or between student and student, or community member and student, etc.) about the project and/or the student work (documented via a short transcription, audiotape, or videotape)
• Survey forms or other instruments-and resulting data-used by students to make decisions about the course of the project
• PowerPoint presentations/websites/e-mail, especially those created by students in the course of the project

In addition to rounding up existing evidence, you may find it worthwhile, even necessary, to generate new sources of data. This may mean, for example, conducting a focus group (with students, or perhaps with parents) or gathering additional student reflections. Quickly reviewing the questions that follow in "Telling Your Story" will help you determine if you have the evidence you need.

Telling your story through a written narrative

Once you have discussed, as a team, your responses to the questions below and paired your answers with strong evidence, appoint one or more people to write the actual narrative—connecting it directly to the evidence by making specific references throughout the text. The narrative should address the following questions, taking its organization from the five main sections below and bearing the appropriate, corresponding titles. You don't need to answer every question point-by-point - just make sure that each section provides the information asked for so that an outside reader really understands the goals, methods, and impact of the project.

1. Who put this portfolio entry together?

List the people who developed the portfolio entry and describe briefly who they are in the school or community, the role they played in the project, and the role they played in creating this entry. This will give the reader an idea of each portfolio maker’s vantage point and the strength and diversity of the team.

2. Who is participating in the project and what has occurred?

1. Briefly describe the context in which you are working. What is your community like? How many people live there, and why do they live there? Is the geography or history of your area important to understanding how and why people do things? What is your school like? How many students and teachers are there? What is your school and community history regarding place-based work?
2. Who are the participants in the project, and what are their roles? For students, give their age, grade and class (if appropriate). For others, describe who they are in the school or community and what unique perspectives or skills each brings to the work.
3. Outline in chronological order the major steps or project activities to date, including roughly how long each has taken. A timeline might be a useful approach.
4. What need, interest, or issue in the community does the project address?
5. Who developed the purpose and methods of the project? How did students contribute to its planning?
6. What constraints or opportunities have influenced the way the project has unfolded?

3. What is the instructional context of the project?

1. What are the learning goals? Why are they appropriate for the students involved? How do these goals relate to state and/or community standards for student learning?
2. What instructional strategies and resources were used to get students started? How did the strategies and resources support the project's learning goals? Provide instructional artifacts that succinctly show what students are being asked to do.

4. What can be learned from the student work?

1. Who are the students whose work is featured in this entry, and why were they selected? Describe (taking as much as a page each) their strengths, interests, and usual approaches to learning so that readers can understand the significance of each student's growth.
2. What kinds of student work did you choose as evidence of learning and why? Give some context for the work: e.g., the assignment's purpose, the challenge(s) it presented to the particular student, what you want your readers to note about the work (i.e., its important educational characteristics).
3. What specific aspects of each student's work suggest growth in understanding and skills—that the student is making progress against the learning goals of the project?
4. How has student learning in the project been assessed? How were student assessments used to inform instruction and improve student learning? Who has participated in the assessment and how has feedback to students been handled? (If possible and appropriate, include an assessment of the student's work along with the work itself. It may be appropriate to include average or aggregate class data to add to the evidence related to individual students.)
5. What does the work suggest about challenges or frustrations the students may have experienced? How have they been addressed?
6. What useful comparisons might you make between the involvement of each student in the project and the project's impact on each?

5. Reflection and next steps

1. How well are the goals of the project being met? To what extent has this project stretched students intellectually, helped them learn new roles and skills, and enabled them to contribute to the community?
2. Taken together, what does the student work suggest about the next steps for instruction, for assessment—for the class and/or for individual students?
3. What does the work suggest about next steps with regard to community collaboration?
4. What has been most difficult about the project? How are you hoping to address these barriers—and how optimistic are you about your success?
5. What have you learned from completing this entry that you did not know before? Are there any serendipitous outcomes and, if so, what are they?