Designing Professional Portfolios for Change

Formerly a SkyLight publication.

"Can I see your portfolio?" It′s a phrase teachers will hear from their current administrators and potential employers. Portfolios capture an educator′s teaching style, philosophy, and accomplishments, and lay them out for everyone to see. But portfolios are not only used for performance reviews, job searches, and promotion justifications; they also aid educators in long-term development and goal setting. Portfolios allow teachers to make a realistic evaluation of their own progress, and if necessary, adapt accordingly.

Kay Burke discusses the two major types of portfolios―professional growth and performance―and walks teachers through every aspect of developing and maintaining a useful piece. Teachers learn how to:

• Review resources
• Collect data
• Collaborate with peers
• Select and organize content
• Reflect on finished portfolio projects

Complete with blacklines and a sample portfolio, this how-to guide is a keystone for a professional development library.

Kay Burke has served as an award-winning classroom teacher and a school administrator, university instructor, and international professional developer. She works with Kay Burke & Associates, LLC, to provide workshops for teachers and administrators in standards-based learning, performance assessment, classroom management, mentoring, and portfolio development. For the past 18 years, Burke has presented at state and national conferences such as ASCD, NSDC, NAESP, NASSP, NMSA, and IRA as well as international conferences in Canada and Australia. She is the author of 10 professional development books and coauthor of a college textbook on assessment. Corwin Press published Burke′s best-selling From Standards to Rubrics in Six Steps: Tools for Assessing Student Learning, K–8 (2006), a 2007 finalist for the Distinguished Achievement Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing presented by the Association of Educational Publishers. Other books published by Corwin Press include How to Assess Authentic Learning, Fourth Edition (2005) and What to Do With the Kid Who: Developing Cooperation, Self-Discipline and Responsibility in the Classroom (Third Edition).