Response Groups as Learning Resources When Working with Portfolios.

This article, based on the guidance of 17 teacher education students during their final term, presents the theoretical framework, procedures and results of an extensive experiment with portfolio assessment combined with peer tutoring. A recent reform programme in higher education in Norway has as one of its aims to improve the quality of teaching and better facilitate learning in universities and university colleges. One important aspect of the reform programme is to encourage greater diversity in student assessment, and to establish a closer link between the learning process and the methods of examination. Following up on those intentions, the students are encouraged to work more systematically on written texts as a strategy for learning, accompanied by responses to their drafts offered by the course tutors. The idea of portfolio assessment is central in the reform programme, as also is the concept of reflection. During a term 17 student teachers worked regularly in peer groups giving responses to each other's drafts, which also included separate reflection papers related to their work in the response groups. This way of working seems to have had a positive impact on their learning both as students and as a basis for their further development as professional teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]