What's in Your Pizza Box?

A couple of years ago, My Wife came up with a brilliant idea to collect work Our Boys are proud of: every couple of weeks, each of Our Sons chooses something from school he is proud of and My Wife or I make a choice as well.  As you can see, their pizza boxes are full - we have a pizza box for each year they have been in school.  It's a way for us to collect, as a family, the work Our Boys are proud of over a long period of time.  They're only 5 and 7 - we need a few more boxes already!

In MPS, we've been having discussions about electronic portfolios as a way for students to collect work that they're proud of, as well as a way to demonstrate improvement over time.  Part of the challenge in educational leadership is to document student improvement over time, through the lens of one student.  I can tell you anecdotally that our students across the district demonstrate improvement over time.  Our teachers consistently use pre-assessments to inform instructional decisions, use formative assessments to track progress throughout, and review results from summative assessments to establish benchmarks for future work in classrooms.  We have to have documentation of improvement - and we can do more. 

I admit that I like the idea of an electronic portfolio - it truly captures student work from developing to basic to proficient, to distinguished.  Recently, My Wife and I attended our first Parent/Teacher Conference for Our Son in Kindergarten.  During the conference, his teacher showed us two pieces of paper: one was completed in August, one was completed the week of the conference.  The one from August had a list of numbers from one to ten and while all numbers were identifiable, there was plenty of room for growth!  The one from the week of the conference showed dramatic improvement (I am proud to say) and it was fun to put the two pieces of paper side by side to revel in the work Our Youngest has done with his teacher in Kindergarten!

My Wife and I are hoping to have examples from both Boys for the balance of their educational career - work that they and we are proud of.  In MPS, we are hoping to create a way for students to track their work for their educational careers.  If given the opportunity, what would you put in the pizza boxes for your own children?