Skill Portfolios

Skill Portfolios

The fundamental purpose of Competency Based Education is the acquisition of Skills, Competencies, or Standards. In most cases, each of those terms can be used interchangeably. The “Aha!” moments come when Learners begin to understand what Skills they need to succeed in their lives, how to define competency of those Skills, and can see their own progress towards mastery of those Skills.

Your school has adopted a Skills Framework that is comprised of the Skills to be mastered by each Learner. Many think of the Skills Framework as the competencies required for success upon graduation – for college and/or workplace readiness. Some schools conceive of their Skills Framework as their “Portrait of a Graduate” or “Profile of a Graduate”. For each Learner, LiFT creates a Skill Portfolio for each Skill in your school’s Skills Framework.

Projects are designed to develop specific Skills. Evidence assignments in those Projects are tagged to those skills and the resulting Evidence of Learning (also called Artifacts of Learning) is how a Learner demonstrates their growing command of that Skill.

Each Skill in your Skills Framework has Rubrics or Skill Levels to assess them. In many cases, the Rubrics are standardized across all skills. Some schools carefully define each Skill Level for every Skill, which makes assessment less subjective for you as a teacher, and also easier for Learners to understand what is expected of them, and how or where they can improve to reach a higher level of competency.


Sample Standardized Rubrics

  • Emerging
  • Developing
  • Proficient
  • Exemplary

Sample Defined Rubrics

  • Emerging: I can provide a summary that explains the setting of a historical event (e.g. time, geography, culture).
  • Developing: I can describe the setting and circumstances surrounding a historical event (e.g. time, geography, culture, politics, economics, and/or religion).
  • Proficient: I can analyze the unique setting and circumstances of a historical event (e.g. time, geography, culture, politics, economics, and/or religion). I can compare differing perspectives of people/groups involved. I can draw conclusions about the significance of the setting and of differing perspectives in shaping the event.
  • Exemplary: I can provide a synthesis of the unique circumstances and setting of a historical event (e.g., time, geography institutions, culture, politics, economics, and/or religion) within the broader regional, national, or global context. I can explain the position and rationale behind the differing perspectives of people/groups involved. I can draw conclusions about the significance of the context and of differing perspectives in shaping the event.


When Evidence is completed, it can be moved into a Skill Portfolio as an Artifact of Learning. But what constitutes “completed”? That is for you to determine, or your school to develop a norm around. Again, the purpose of Competency Based Education is acquisition of Skills. The purpose of a Project is not necessarily to finish a Project, but to acquire the Skills the Project was designed to help a Learner develop. Oftentimes, that journey is accomplished through a robust feedback and revision cycle. At some point, you and your Learner will develop a consensus that Evidence is completed – and hopefully proficiency in one or more Skills acquired – and the Evidence is moved into the Learner’s relevant Skill Portfolio.

The Skill Portfolios for all of the Learners in each of your classes are displayed in the Portfolios tab of your Classes Module. Here you can see a grid, with all Skills that were assigned in that Class listed across the top of the grid. The top row of Skills in dark blue are the parent skills and the second row of skills are child skills, related to the parent skill. If a parent skill is assigned in the class, it displays on the portfolio with a downward blue arrow. Some schools use different labels instead of parent and child skills, such as Standards (top row) and Indicators (second row).



There is a box at the intersection of each student and each skill. The number in the lower right corner of the box indicates the total count of Artifacts that have accumulated in that learner’s Skill Portfolio. Even if Evidence was marked as complete, and it was rated, if it wasn’t added to the Portfolio, it does not show up in this count or in this Skill Portfolio. 

When you click on any of the Learner/Skill boxes, a pop-up window appears that lists each Artifact in that Skill Portfolio, how the Evidence was evaluated, how the Evidence was weighted, and gives you an opportunity to delete or add new Evidence.


If your school opts for suggested portfolio grading, LiFT will suggest a rating for that Skill Portfolio, calculating the average of all Evidence in that Skill Portfolio according to a grading policy established by your school. As a teacher, you have the option to use that LiFT-suggested grade or provide your own assessment if you feel the Learner’s exhibited competency of that Skill is different from the suggested rating. You also have the opportunity to Approve (or Badge) a Skill, which some schools use to indicate satisfaction of a graduation requirement.


Parent Skills

Using a LiFT portfolio grade policy, there are three options for the calculation of your Parent Skill suggested grade, which are set by your LiFT Facilitator:
  1. The Parent Portfolio can be the average of the Child Skill Portfolio ratings.
  2. The Parent Portfolio can be the average of all of the Child Skill Evidence ratings.
  3. The Parent Portfolio can be the average of all the Evidence tagged to the Parent Skill (just like all the Child Skills).

When you open a Portfolio cell for a Parent Skill, the window displays a summary the grading policy that is in place for that Parent Skill. You will also see two lists of Evidence. The first list is all the Evidence that was tagged to the Parent Skill (even if that Evidence is not included in the calculations for that Skill's Portfolio Grade.) The second list is all of the Evidence that was tagged to any Child Skills (again, even if that evidence isn't directly included in that Parent Skill's Portfolio Grade).

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