Developing a Teaching Portfolio : A Guide for Preservice and Practicing Teachers

With a focus on using portfolios to show one’s work throughout a professional teaching career, this compact, easy-to-read volume provides prospective and current teachers both the foundation and the specifics to be successful in their portfolio building endeavors. A two-part organization serves a two-fold purpose: first, setting the stage for portfolio building for students and novice teachers who have yet to engage in this activity; and, second, presenting a menu of topics from which more experienced educators can choose to inform their creation of targeted, results-oriented portfolios for a variety of situations

Today, many teachers think they have become scapegoats for all the problems facing education. Their feelings are a result of the wave of reform initiatives in the past 25 years that have focused on the classroom teacher. This focus is supported by research that reports that the most salient element for a child's academic achievement is the quality of his or her classroom teacher. How to determine that quality has evolved through two decades of accountability efforts. The passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation places increased emphasis on how to determine the "quality" of teachers. How the nation will define quality is yet to be clearly revealed, but the momentum for using portfolios continues to grow. Developing a Teaching Portfolio: A Guide for Preservice and Practicing Teachers speaks to this form of assessment and concentrates on how a teacher can use the portfolio process to demonstrate his or her competence as a professional.

Developing a Teaching Portfolio is a book that can be used in teacher preparation programs, as staff development for practicing teachers to teach the portfolio development process, or for individuals interested in the portfolio process. It focuses on using portfolios throughout one's professional career. Before progressing through each chapter, let's consider what is new to this edition:

1. At the end of a section or chapter are activities for preservice or inservice teachers to complete. These will give teachers the opportunity to practice the new concept or skill in a safe, nonpunitive environment.
2. There are more examples of portfolios, reflections, analyses, rubrics, and statewide assessment systems.
3. Former chapters 6 and 7 have been combined into one chapter (Chapter 6) about portfolios for licensure, whether the teacher is a beginner or a veteran.
4. The chapter on digital portfolios has been expanded with activities that will guide even the most inexperienced user of technology.
5. Dependable Web sites have been added so that students and teachers can search on their own for additional information about portfolios and their use.
6. Updated appendixes provide additional information and standards of interest to the consumer.

Please remember, Chapters 1 through 3 are required reading regardless of the teacher's career stage. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the accountability and teacher assessment movements. Chapter 2 describes a portfolio and the different types of portfolios that one can develop. Because reflections are the very heart of the portfolio process, Chapter 3 is devoted to the "what, why, when, and how" of writing a reflection. This opening section of the book also addresses the legal issues involved with portfolios and the assessment and scoring of them.

Chapters 4 through 7 are dedicated to what portfolios should include and how teachers go about developing a portfolio at different stages of their careers. Chapters 4 and 5 center on the development of portfolios during the years that teachers are novices. Chapter 4's focus is on preservice teachers, and Chapter 5 spotlights using the portfolio to obtain employment. Chapter 6 concentrates on preparing a portfolio for continuing licensure and license renewal. Chapter 7 hones in on the master teacher who is seeking national board certification.

Chapter 8 provides instruction on the use of digital portfolios at any stage of one's career. This chapter presents the pros and cons of developing an electronic portfolio and makes suggestions concerning the hardware and software one would use. Our colleague Dr. Ivan Wallace contributed his expertise to this chapter.