Throughout their years at SEEQS, students build a collection of work that demonstrates their progress in developing the SEEQS Sustainability Skills. In their 8th grade year, SEEQers collate the best of those works into a portfolio, and then deliver a public defense of their progress before a panel, making the case that they are ready for the next stage of their education.

In the portfolio, students reflect on work that offers observable evidence of their ability to apply the SEEQS Sustainability Skills. The portfolio contains five pieces of work (“exemplars”) each chosen by the student to represent their growth in one of the five Sustainability Skills.

The Portfolio

The defense is a live presentation before a panel composed of SEEQS teachers, community partners, and at least one fellow student.

Students make the case that they are ready for the next stage of their education by citing evidence from their portfolio. Based on the strength of the presentation, the panel makes a decision as to whether the student has passed or has room for improvement and must make another attempt.

The Defense

Why Portfolio Defenses?

The portfolio defense process allows students to tell the story of their education, seeing it not as a collection of credits but as a multi-year project toward a unified end. It is a powerful rite of passage, much deeper and more substantive than a graduation ceremony alone provides.

Schools that have designed and implemented some version of a portfolio-defense system benefit from transformative changes to school culture, student identity, and organizational awareness. Benefits of the portfolio defense process include:

Ensure that a school focuses on what it values most
Encourage students to take ownership of their learning journey
Increase parental and community involvement in a school
Help a school community to self-assess and to reflect on its progress toward its goals
Embody a school’s mission in actual student performances

The SEEQS Portfolio-Defense is based on a tested model developed by Envision Education, in collaboration with education researchers at Stanford University. We have adopted and refined this process over the years to fit SEEQS .