Digital Teaching Portfolios
During my first year of teaching, I also assembled a teaching portfolio of my work. I wanted evidence of my work in planning, in the classroom, at professional development opportunities as well as projects I created and participated in. I wanted to grow my portfolio as my teaching experience grew. I used a binder and added pictures of my classroom, bulletin boards, students involved in activities. I added assignments, projects, lessons and unit plans I had developed. That binder gave be something tangible to hold and show off.
A definition of a teaching dossier (portfolio) from Wikipedia reads:
is a collection of a faculty’s qualifications documenting their teaching effectiveness for tenure positions and promotions.
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness states:
The teaching portfolio is both a process and a product. It is at once the receptacle for evidence of achievement in teaching and the means for teachers to discern ways to achieve more.
In short, creating a portfolio involves reflection, collection, selection, and connection.
As teachers plan to assemble their portfolio, they become reflective as they decide what should be include or not.
- What items, artifacts and descriptions give evidence of them as an effective teacher?
- What will highlight their strengths, goals and achievements as an educator?
- How are their lesson plans and student work samples related to their teaching and learning philosophy?
- How and what kind of documents, photos, descriptions, and describe you best as an educator in your field of expertise?
- What areas of the portfolio are lacking or are missing?
- On what kind of teaching practices do they need to work on?
Once you have decided to create a digital portfolio or convert your hard copy portfolio to a digital one, you should start the process of finding out:
- How do you best archive/save your work electronically?
- What tool/program/platform can I use to create a digital portfolio?
- What sections should your digital professional teaching portfolio include?
How do you best archive/save your work electronically?
The best way to get started is to beginning saving evidence of your teaching and learning in digital form (text, image, audio, video). Hard copy items, such as papers or printed images will have to be scanned to convert them to a digital format.
- Create a folder on your hard drive and save files that you might use for your portfolio there.
You can also start uploading files to web based sites, that let you save, organize, tag, and later easily search and embed these files
- Digital images and video clips (up to 90 seconds)- Ex. Flickr
- Video clips- Ex. YouTube
- Slideshows (PowerPoint presentations & Documents)-Ex. Slideshare
What tool/program/platform can I use to create a digital portfolio?
- Collect electronic files under a folder on your hard drive, then burn to a CD
- Blog platform
- Wiki platform
- Static Web Site
- PowerPoint presentation
- Word Document
- VoiceThread
- MovieMaker (PC) or iMovie (mac)
What sections should your digital professional teaching portfolio include?
- About You
- Teaching & Work Experience
- Resume
- Documentation
- Teaching Certification
- University Transcripts
- References
- Evaluations
- Teaching & Learning Philosophy (Guide to Developing a Teaching Philosophy)
- Blog
- Projects (that support your knowledge, skills and experience)
- Lesson Plans & Units (that support your knowledge, skills and experience)
- Technology Integration
- Professional Development
- Accomplishments & Recognition
- Photos Gallery
- Video Gallery
Here is my digital Teaching & Learning Portfolio on Langwitches. Some areas are not yet completed… it will always be a work in progress.
Here are a few samples of other digital professional teacher portfolios
Other resources to help you create a teaching portfolio:
- CIDR Teaching Portfolio Resources
- Teaching Portfolio (.pdf) from University of Massachusetts
- What are e-portfolios? from Penn State
Please add a link to your digital teaching portfolio in the comment section as examples for other educators.
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This is the link to my online digital portfolio from my Masters in Instructional Technology.
Dear Silvia,
What a clear and interesting post! Two years ago I decided I wanted to have my own virtual spot to record and reflect on my professional learning path and to showcase the projects I developed with my students and colleagues. I called it “my professional development virtual hub”.
Every single decision was important, from the blog host I chose to the style content and organization. Every aspect should reflect your personal/professional philosophy.
Best regards from Rosario, Argentina
Hi,
Developing a portfolio is requisite for all professions. It not only reflects your professional experiences, but also, looks proficient and delivers one’s experiences in a glance. Your post has given new meanings to portfolio building.
[...] wrote about my thoughts about the change from traditional Paper-and-Binder teacher dossier to the Digital Teaching Portfolios. A natural sequel to the post would be the move towards digital student portfolios from the [...]