Putting Together Professional Portfolios

Christine Forde, Margery McMahon, Jenny Reeves

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781412946704, 9781412946698
• eBook ISBN: 9781446244555
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With the increasing emphasis on continuing professional development for teachers and all educational practitioners, the use of portfolios to plan, chart and review professional development is now widespread.

Drawing directly from their experience of developing portfolios and portfolio-based assessment, and from current research, this book enables the reader to:

- design and plan a portfolio

- chart and analyse relevant professional experiences

- reflect critically on practice

- assess performance against standards and competences frameworks

- present evidence of practice and achievements

- plan their continuing professional development

There are Chapter Objectives, Key Questions and Tasks in every chapter, which adds to the practical focus of the book.

An essential read for teachers, teaching assistants, any practitioner assembling a Continuing Professional Department (CPD) portfolio, those working towards further qualifications such as Chartered Teacher status, newly qualified and probationary teachers and anyone involved in supporting and mentoring CPD.

1

What Is a Portfolio?

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In this introductory chapter we discuss what we mean by ‘a professional portfolio’. We explore different models of portfolios and consider ways these might be used to support professional development.

Key ideas

• Why develop a portfolio?
• What is a professional portfolio?
• Different models of a professional portfolio
• Looking at the contents of a portfolio
• Portfolio-based learning
• Key questions to plan your portfolio

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Why develop a professional portfolio?

Central to the process of developing a portfolio is our understanding of what it means to be a learning professional, that is, someone who continues to develop and enhance their skills and understanding for the benefit of the learners they work with. A professional portfolio provides a space in which you can plan and reflect in depth on your practice, helping you identify your strengths and find ways of building on these.

What is a professional portfolio?

There are many different ways in which a portfolio can be developed and we explore different constructions of portfolios, ranging from prescriptive formats to open-ended frameworks. Underpinning the use of portfolios in professional development are some common principles related to how practitioners learn and develop their professional practice throughout their careers. We contextualise these principles by drawing directly from the experience of teachers, school leaders and lecturers in tertiary education who have developed professional portfolios across a range of professional development programmes, and from current research on portfolio-based learning and assessment. We also look at the design and construction of e-portfolios as the use of these is becoming more common in professional development programmes.

In broad terms, a professional portfolio could be described as a collection of material put together in a meaningful way to demonstrate the practice and learning of an educational practitioner. Portfolios are used for different purposes and vary in the way they are designed and constructed. Most portfolios are built up over a period of time, though even this may vary in length, with some portfolios created in a concentrated way over a short period of time, often as part of a programme of study. Other portfolios are maintained and regularly updated as the practitioner moves through his/her career. However, a professional portfolio is not a random collection of material and artefacts. The items relate to what the practitioner sees as important in the development of his/her practice, whether this is in a classroom, seminar room, school or wider educational setting. The format of portfolios also varies in the way items are gathered and then presented. The key issue here is that the design and presentation of the portfolio makes sense to the practitioner and anyone else who might read this, such as a critical friend, tutor or line manager.

What are the benefits and challenges of developing a professional portfolio?

Designing and building a professional portfolio is a powerful means of planning, enhancing and reviewing practice. Here are some of the benefits of producing a professional portfolio identified by participants on different professional development programmes. Developing the portfolio:

• created a sense of achievement
• built my self-confidence
• was an opportunity to conduct an in-depth self-evaluation
• developed my skills of reflection
• developed greater awareness of the context I work in
• made me think about where I want to go and what I need to develop
• strengthened my understanding of my development as a practitioner
• gave more rigour in analysing my practice
• created a sense of my own journey as a professional
• allowed me to become more critical
• let me appreciate some of my successes more
• helped me know and be confident about my strengths
• enabled me to think about my practice and ways I can develop this.

Clearly, producing a professional portfolio has benefits personally for an educational practitioner by building confidence and greater understanding as well as other benefits, with the educational practitioner looking in depth at his/her practice and then finding ways to improve this. However, there are some challenges. Among the issues identified by course participants are:

• the portfolio could become simply a paper trail
• constructing and assembling the portfolio is time-consuming
• very ‘messy’ at the start when trying to find a format
• the portfolio can create an atomistic approach – looking at different tasks without making connections
• the portfolio can focus on the functional aspects of practice without looking at the ‘big picture’.

In this book we seek to enable you to derive benefit from the process of designing and constructing your portfolio by providing a range of techniques and examples that will also help you avoid some of these pitfalls.

Why do you want to develop a portfolio?

The first issue to consider is the purpose of your portfolio, so we will begin by exploring some of the different purposes and then relate these to the design principles and formats of different types of portfolios commonly used in education.

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Key Question

Why do you want to develop a portfolio?

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There are many reasons why you might be developing a portfolio. Is it:

• a contractual obligation: perhaps as part of a professional review and appraisal process
• for an academic or professional award where developing a portfolio is part of the learning and assessment process
• part of a professional development programme where a portfolio is the means to review practice and plan further professional development?

Is the purpose of your portfolio:

• to illustrate achievements
• to demonstrate ongoing development of thinking and practice
• to collect evidence
• to provide a vehicle for reflection?

Your reasons for developing a portfolio will provide some broad parameters for you to begin the process of designing the format and deciding on the contents.

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Task: Thinking about why you want to develop a portfolio

Jot down some reasons and think about how these might shape your portfolio.

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Different models of a professional portfolio

There are many different types of professional portfolios used in continuing development of educational practitioners. Some portfolios are very structured while others are far looser in their design and contents. In some programmes there are clear guidelines to which the practitioner must adhere; in others, practitioners can determine the size, scope, format and contents of the portfolio. There are advantages and disadvantages to both structured portfolios and to more open-ended portfolios.

Portfolios with prescribed structures are evident in programmes leading to a professional qualification or an academic award where the portfolio forms part of the assessment of these programmes. Increasingly these programmes use a competence framework or standard and the portfolio is the means to demonstrate the achievement of the areas of practice specified in a particular framework. The guidelines are useful in helping you design the shape and scope of your portfolio and helping you to plan the activities you must undertake and decide how to gather the relevant evidence. However, such tight guidelines can also be limiting as there is little scope for you to examine areas of practice and to add materials that have a special significance for your development within your professional context.

At the other end of the continuum, with open-ended portfolios the choice is very much shaped by what the practitioner sees as meaningful and important. This ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Authors
• Prefac
• How to Use This Book
• 1 What Is a Portfolio?
• 2 Professional Learning
• 3 Writing a Professional Autobiography
• 4 Action Learning
• 5 Reflection as Learning
• 6 Recording Learning and Practice
• 7 Describing and Reflecting on Practice
• 8 Designing an Electronic Portfolio
• 9 Designing and Constructing Your Portfolio
• References
• Index