A “strand” is a way to feature some artifacts and potentially other narrative for a particular theme or “tour” within your portfolio. Some folks have called these “mini showcases” or “exhibits”. Those terms work fine too. Whatever you call it, a strand is a way to use the BPM technique to showcase selected works, in a best works or showcase portfolio concept. So while the Artifacts page (and post listings) is your database of all artifacts (with alignments and tags for easy filtering for your reflections), a strand page is a selection from those for a particular purpose.
Sometimes, course instructors want you to create a dedicated page that organizes all your work in that course. It’s the same concept. Oh, and strand pages might morph over time. For example, a future teacher who created a strand page for “EDPS 345 Tests and Measurement” might change the page name to “Assessment” to show future future employers her best works on assessment.
For example, here’s what my students in EDPS 345 make for their “Assessment Strand”
Philosophy of Assessment
This paragraph or two conveys their principles for classroom assessment, probably significantly informed by reflections on InTASC 6.
Featured Artifacts
Here, she lists some selected artifacts (all of them from my course, but this could change). She could link to the post that holds the artifact or straight to her artifact. I suggest the former but there are reasons for the latter. Whatever seems to make sense.
Category and Tag Links
Sometimes, educators want to root around in the collections of a museum. If that’s what you want (or required to do), you could ad some category links to InTASC 6 and links to the main InTASC 6 reflections page. Other tag links too:
See other artifacts aligned to InTASC 6. See my InTASC 6 decision point reflections.
See other artifacts aligned to the assessment tag and maybe others.