Portfolios In Teacher Education Research Articles

Research on portfolios in teacher education: a systematic review

ABSTRACT Portfolios are credited with an array of potentials (e.g. to reinforce student teachers’ professionalisation). Their use in teacher education has rapidly increased in recent years, particularly because of system-wide implementations. Nevertheless, studies on portfolios have not followed this growth. A systematic review of studies is pending. Hence, this study systematically examines the available portfolio research literature (N = 246 texts), focusing on joint research topics and analyses quantitative empirical effects (e.g. on student teachers’ reflexivity) in more depth using vote-counting. Overall, there are many findings on student teachers’ perceptions of portfolios, but only a few examine portfolios’ quantitative empirical effects. Findings indicate that working with portfolios is likely to increase the level of student teachers’ reflective writing. Even though the analysed research provides initial insights into portfolios, their significance (e.g. effects on developing professional knowledge) remains unclear.

APOSTAS FORMATIVAS DE PORTFÓLIOS COLETIVOS EM DIÁLOGO COM A PESQUISA CIENTÍFICA

ABSTRACT: An overview of research on the use of portfolios in teacher education is presented, in order to identify propositions arising from the research and relate them to education proposals assumed in all of the public notices approved by Coordination for Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in Institutional Teacher Training Scholarship (PIBID) of a Higher Education Institution (IES) for the use of portfolios. PIBID is briefly presented, and the mapping of scientific articles is described in its three stages: identification, classification and analysis. The classification of articles according to geographic regions has enabled us to realize that the theme is spread across all Brazilian regions and that the same is observed in relation to international productions. The analysis stage consisted of a categorization in the light of Discursive Textual Analysis. The resulting categories addressed research on: the portfolio itself; the portfolio for teacher evaluation; the portfolio as a student's reflection; the portfolio as a record of the training network; the portfolio as an institutional artifact for certification; the discourse of the participants about the portfolios; and the bibliographic discourse on portfolios. It has been concluded that there is resonance between the education proposals assumed for the use of portfolios in PIBID of an IES and the categories of analysis, with the exception of the proposal on the epistemic potency of writing. Some categories resulting from the mapping did not appear as education proposals: the portfolio for teacher evaluation, the portfolio as an institutional artifact for certification, and the portfolio by itself.

Learning with Digital Portfolios: Teacher Candidates Forming an Assessment Identity

This study focuses on how the use of digital portfolios in teacher education can support teacher candidates to shift their understanding of assessment as they form their assessment identity. The study was in the context of a changing curriculum and assessment practices promoted in British Columbia. We draw on data from a cohort of teacher candidates in the first term of a 16-month post-degree teacher education program, where they created a digital portfolio across multiple courses as part of their final assessment to be used in an exit interview with instructors and teaching professionals from the field. Narratives of teacher candidates’ experiences were collected to shed light on their changing understanding of assessment for learning practices and their emerging teacher identity as assessors promoted by the digital portfolio process. Significance of using digital portfolios to support their process of becoming teachers is focused in conclusion of the paper.

Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education

At a time when implementation of electronic portfolios (EPs) is expanding, the issues of clarifying their purposes continue to plague teacher education programs. Are student-centered uses of EPs compatible with program assessment and accreditation efforts? Is this an either/or situation, or can a productive middle ground be forged? This article reviews the compatibility of key purposes for EPs in light of the changing landscape of their use in teacher education. It explores theoretical perspectives, analyzes policy implications and challenges, and provides recommendations that support current adoption and implementation decisions. It concludes that it is possible to effectively use EPs for varied purposes and provides specific recommendations for doing so.

Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education: A Case Study of Early Childhood Teacher Candidates

The use of electronic portfolios is increasingly becoming popular in teacher education programs. The electronic portfolio allows learners to express their work and take ownership over their own ability to plan and assess and reflect upon their learning during a specific period of time. While many teacher education programs have adopted electronic portfolios in order to meet accreditation requirements, others use electronic portfolios to develop and improve on students’ technology skills—train students on how to better use technology in instruction and student assessment. Irrespective of the reasons for adoption, there is the need to assess students’ perceptions of electronic portfolios, and especially to explore the benefits and challenges students face in using electronic portfolios in their course work. Using a qualitative research design, the current study explored teacher candidates’ attitudes toward electronic portfolios and the differences that electronic portfolios bring to their profession. Such a study is necessary to help administrators identify students’ needs to ensure that they are gaining the maximum benefits from the use of electronic portfolios in their programs of study.

Comparing the Efficacy of an Engineered-Based System (College Livetext) with an off-the-Shelf General Tool (Hyperstudio) for Developing Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education

In teacher education, electronic portfolios provide an authentic form of assessment documenting students' personal and professional growth. Using the engineered-based system, College LiveText, and an off-the-shelf general tool, HyperStudio, pre-service teachers constructed e-portfolios as part of their teacher preparation requirements. This case study revealed that pre-service teachers favored the high efficacy of HyperStudio applications when compared to College LiveText portal, because of its flexibility that matched their creativity, vision, and style. The style and vision of the pre-service teachers were in keeping with constructivism and facilitated the learning paradigm shift that characterizes the quality of pre-service teachers' preparation for licensure in a mid-south university in the U.S.

Costs and Benefits of Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education

This descriptive study investigated the benefits and costs of using electronic portfolios (EPs) in preservice teacher education. Grounded within change theory, the study examined the perspectives of faculty in six programs in which EPs have been used on a large scale for two or more years. Benefits identified include increased opportunities for students to reflect and learn, better student understanding of teaching standards, better faculty access for assessing student work, increased faculty communication with students, and improved tracking of student performance for purposes of accreditation and program improvement. The costs or disadvantages include issues pertaining to the amount of time and effort expended and to the lack of compatibility with faculty members' beliefs, values, and needs. Overall, the authors conclude that faculty satisfaction with EPs appears strongly associated with their values for student-centered teacher education and in some cases, their willingness to sacrifice individual preferences to accomplish program goals.

Perspectives and issues of the creation for weblog‐based electronic portfolios in teacher education

The article discusses the continually evolving presence of the Internet in education. The use of synchronous chat rooms, newsgroups, and discussion forums is well established in education, but other computer-mediated communication systems, such as weblogs and blogging, are relatively new developments. The article discusses the use of weblogs as a means to establish an archive of information by date, as well as to provide hyperlinks to other blogs or sites of interest. Also considered are weblog-based electronic portfolios, and the role of weblogs in teacher-student relationships.

Costs and Benefits of Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education

This descriptive study investigated the benefits and costs of using electronic portfolios (EPs) in preservice teacher education by examining the voices of students in six programs thought to be mature in their implementation. Benefits included opportunities to reflect, better access to and organization of professional documents, increased technology skills, and better understanding of teaching standards. The costs or disadvantages included issues of program implementation, access to and reliability of the technology, and the amount of time and effort expended. The authors conclude that understanding student perceptions of their experiences can lead to improved practices and policies with regard to EPs and should be considered in future research.

The Diffusion of Electronic Portfolios In Teacher Education

This is the second part of a two-part article on the diffusion of electronic portfolios in preservice teacher education. The first part addressed issues of adoption and implementation; this part documents “next steps” and key recommendations by informants from the six programs studied. Next steps included streamlining requirements, addressing reliability of technology and access, and planning for data aggregation and program evaluation. Key recommendations were to involve a broad base of participants in the planning process, clarify the purposes for electronic portfolios, move forward incrementally, and provide sufficient technology access, training, and support. The study concludes that a range of research is needed to inform future decisions pertaining to the large-scale implementation of electronic portfolios in teacher education.

The Diffusion of Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education

This descriptive study investigates the diffusion of electronic portfolios in preservice teacher education by documenting the context and emergent practices in six programs identified as mature in their implementation. Context variables examined include prior use of paper portfolios, pressures for standards-based assessment, and leadership and governance issues. Variations in program implementation are also explored including the portfolio tools employed, artifact selection, evaluation of student work, and the role of reflection. Findings of the study suggest that amidst the common themes across programs, there are numerous variations in approaches to e-portfolio use. The authors conclude that further research is needed to examine the future directions for e-portfolios envisioned as well as specific advice for those in earlier stages of adoption or implementation.

Portfolios as evidence of reflective practice: what remains ‘untold’

Addressing recent calls for investigating the specific quality of reflection associated with the uses of portfolios in teacher education, this paper describes and interprets the ‘practice of portfolio construction’ as revealed in the construction and presentation of two kinds of portfolio in two in-service courses for mentors of teachers in Israel: a ‘process’ portfolio and a ‘product’ portfolio. The study revealed that the language of practice and form of reflection bore striking similarities across the two practices of portfolio construction, regardless of their differences in content, purpose, organization and the degree of intervention of the course instructors in its construction. In both types of portfolios, the mentors described their learning mostly at technical levels of reflection. This tendency raises the question of whether the genre of portfolio writing, inevitably bound by institutional constraints, is generically conducive to reflecting on controversial experiences at interpretative, critical levels. The study suggests that within a centralized educational system, as in the case of Israel, the documentation of critical reflection is problematic.

Portfolios and assessment in teacher education in Norway: a theory‐based discussion of different models in two sites

Two teacher institutions in Norway involved in a new ICT‐supported portfolio project provide data for our study. In this paper we present a model of analysis for portfolio processes based on sociocultural perspectives of learning and assessment and describe and discuss differences and similarities of the portfolio models in these institutions in relation to our model of analysis. We also highlight areas for improvement; among them the importance of building reflection, self‐assessment and feedback into portfolio assignments and processes in such a way that it becomes part of what is documented. This will strengthen the formative assessment aspect of portfolios. The summative assessment practices are strongly influenced by exam traditions in both institutions. Digital portfolios provide new learning opportunities that are not yet fully utilized. By way of conclusion we explore some critical aspects of portfolios in teacher education in light of Wenger's social theory of learning, focusing on the concepts participation, reification and identity formation.

Program reflections on the role of longitudinal digital portfolios in the development of technology competence

Digital portfolios in teacher education provide opportunities to conceptualize learning and growth over time. The digital portfolio experiences of two secondary teacher education students in the context of an entire preservice teaching experience are presented. These vignettes, along with programmatic observations from the past four years, indicate that high‐level uses of educational technology are difficult to facilitate in large teacher education programs using a technology infusion model that emphasizes general skills. Whereas many teacher education programs have abandoned required technology courses to jump start National Educational Technology Standards‐based competence, the authors argue that advanced courses in educational technology for teacher education majors are still necessary for curricular integration with technology. This article concludes with a discussion of the nature and level of technology competence in relation to portfolio development and makes recommendations for how programs might pursue similar models.

Digital Portfolios in Teacher Education

Digital portfolios can be powerful tools for facilitating reflective practice when based on sound developmental principles and adequately supported by mentoring, peer review, and other effective practices. This article explores the use of the digital portfolio to promote reflection by practitioners and suggests strategies that can be employed by teacher educators to maximize the benefits of these constructivist tools for learning, reflection, and assessment.

Preservice Music Teacher Electronic Portfolios Integrating Reflection and Technology

Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in the use of teaching portfolios inteacher education. Teacher educators have reported that the process of developing portfolios canhelp preservice teachers better understand the complexities of teaching, make connectionsbetween classroom learning and field experiences, and develop into flexible and reflectivepractitioners (Carroll, Potthoff, & Huber, 1996; Krause, 1996; McKinney, 1998). The research specific to electronic forms of portfolio development is just beginning to appear;however, there seems to be a great deal of promise in the digital format (McKinney, 1998;Milman, 1999; Polonoli, 2000). Many of the same benefits are reported with electronicportfolios as with the more traditional hard-copy format. Students reflect about themselves, theirwork as students, and their future in the teaching profession through their work in developingelectronic teaching portfolios (Milman, 1999; Polonoli, 2000). In addition, there are specificadvantages to using a digital format. McKinney (1998) reported that the “nonlinear nature ofmultimedia software allowed [students] to more easily show connections, and technologysupported the ability to personalize the way they showed their learning” (p. 94). Polonoli (2000)echoed McKinney’s findings and stated that the digital portfolio was a “unique vehicle” thatallowed students to express themselves and show what they could do. These early reports alsoindicate that the electronic medium can facilitate storage and makes it easier for students andfaculty to access the information (McKinney, 1998). One component of electronic portfolios thatDownloaded from jmt.sagepub.com

Preparing Preservice Teachers to Implement Performance Assessment and Technology through Electronic Portfolios

This qualitative study considers the use of electronic portfolios in teacher education and evaluates responses from 26 preservice teachers (PSTs). The PSTs used presentation software and multimedia to recreate two instructional units they had taught to elementary school children. Following completion of each unit, PSTs responded to open-ended questions in which they evaluated the electronic portfolio assignment. The PSTs rated the assignment positively (7.51 on a 10-point scale). Evaluations disclosed several advantages, including opportunities to learn about educational technology and new ways to organize and present ideas. Some PSTs complained of time and equipment problems. Overall, the electronic portfolio assignment educated the preservice teachers in computer-based technology and provided faculty with a performance-based assessment of teaching development.

Portfolio as practice: the narratives of emerging teachers

This article opens with a discussion of portfolio construction as a complex social practice with intentions, rules and standards. This definition is not typically found in teacher education literature, and has implications for evaluating students’ portfolios. Later, I present and discuss teacher education students’ recollections of creating portfolios in a one-year program at the University of British Columbia. Though stories differ, common themes emerge that support earlier claims about the purposes of portfolios in teacher education. In conclusion, I argue that portfolios should have a place in programs, but only if we address important concerns.

Portfolios in Teacher Education: A Matter of Perspective

(1997). Portfolios in Teacher Education: A Matter of Perspective. The Educational Forum: Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 320-328.

Uses of a Student Portfolio in a Supervised Practice Program

The need for valid evaluation of student competence in supervised practice programs has long been a major task of dietetic educators. In addition, the current Standards of Education allow programs to establish policies and a process for crediting an individual's prior experience toward S the required 900 clock hours. In order to meet both of these needs, faculty in an AP4 program initiated a portfolio process for all students.In college age students, most published reports document the use of portfolios in teacher education. These reports define a portfolio as a purposeful collection that shows the student's efforts, progress and achievements. The portfolio process must involve the student in three ways: 1) establishing criteria for selection of their work, 2) determining the actual contents of their portfolio, and 3) judging the merit of their work. In this AP4 program students utilize their portfolios for several purposes.It is used initially to document previously attained competency. During the first week, students compile materials from their undergraduate or work experience that will show evidence of professional level attainment. In an individual conference, materials are evaluated by both student and faculty to determine which, if any, performance requirements have already been met, and to set goals for areas that may need additional work. During the supervised practice experiences, the portfolio is used to both document attainment of performance requirements and show growth during experiences. For each addition to the portfolio, the student completes an evaluation sheet that asks them to 1) justify inclusion of the work into a collection of professional level materials, 2) determine how the project demonstrates their strengths and weaknesses, and 3) evaluate the quality of the work. Students and faculty meet at least 5–6 times during the AP4 program to discuss and evaluate the portfolio. Lastly, students may use their completed portfolio to highlight their accomplishments and strengths during a job interview.To begin evaluation of the portfolio process, a questionnaire was distributed to all current AP4 students. Students stated that portfolios helped them in organizing important material, determining what is professional caliber work, obtaining credit for past experience, and beginning to self evaluate their work.