This event should be required of EVERY Health Science Technology Education student.

The “big picture” purpose of Health Science Technology Education is to prepare tomorrow’s health care professionals, and no event helps students more toward achieving that goal than the National Recognition Program.

Through the National Recognition Program (NRP) students create a portfolio. The completed portfolio provides evidence of a student’s accomplishments in preparation for a health career. Successful completion of the portfolio will satisfy portfolio components of the Certificate of Achievement for National Health Care (Foundation) Skills Standards. (For more information: www.nchste.com.)

In addition, students are encouraged to use the portfolio as evidence of pre-professional growth and accomplishments when participating in interviews for scholarships, college admission, and jobs.

The student must satisfy ten criteria for the portfolio. The event rating sheet lists the criteria and a description. The HOSA website at http://www.hosa.org/emag/articles/leadership_may03_pg1.pdf contains sample pages for each criteria to give the novice an idea of what the portfolio should look like.

Here are some tips for implementing the National Recognition Program in the classroom.

1. Give students as much time as possible to complete the portfolio.
     
2. Some instructors prefer to use this as a “senior project” type of assignment.
     
3. Invite community leaders or advisory committee members to judge the portfolios.
     
4. If the portfolio is not done as part of HOSA competition, then the student can put more individual expression in the format of the portfolio.
     
5. On the other hand, this is a great classroom assignment that can also provide positive recognition for students through state and national HOSA conferences.
     
6. If the event is to be used for HOSA, but sure to follow the guidelines EXACTLY as written. See: http://www.hosa.org/emag/articles/leadership_march03_pg2.pdf
     

The portfolio is not rated on a scale with many different levels of achievement as with many rubrics, but instead, is rated on a two-point scale. Each criteria is rated as:

• Yes, the standard was met as described in the description column, or
    
• No, it was not.
    

When the portfolio is part of classroom instruction, students are often given a second chance to fix a section until it reaches the standard set by the instructor.

The following two pages include the rating form that describes each section and the list of questions that are part of the writing assignment. If students plan to enter their portfolios in the HOSA National Recognition Program for state or national recognition, be sure they have a copy of the event guidelines.

Rating Form