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NSW HSC Online Professional Development Node

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What does a professional portfolio look like?

As you will have seen from a look at some sample portfolios that are on the web the portfolio can be structured in many ways. Sometimes they appear as journals that document information about the context, philosophy, practice and reflections upon the teaching experience. The portfolio can be loosely or tightly structured where the loose structure represents a personal document whose sole audience is the person developing the portfolio. The more tightly structured portfolios are presented around teaching standards or selection criteria and are to be assessed by others. The physical portfolio can be a box file containing sections that relate to the selected contents of the portfolio. It can be a three-ring folder with plastic sheaves that into which are inserted the artefacts collected or it can be an electronic version. The portfolio can be a multimedia presentation that includes text, video clips, still images and so forth. This multimedia presentation can be on CD or disk or mounted on a web server.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to clearly draw the distinction between a folio and a portfolio. A folio is a collection of materials that should ideally be collected into predetermined categories. It contains examples of material that illustrates the meaning of the categories and a reflective statement about the example accompanies each of the examples. There can be many examples in each category. The material in the folio is then available for the development of a presentation portfolio that is a showcase of recent work and developments. The portfolio is developed with a specific purpose in mind and this purpose guides the material that is selected from the folio for inclusion in the portfolio.

Activity

1. Keeping in mind the purpose for which you are developing your portfolio, begin to think about how you will eventually present you portfolio and therefore also how it will be structured. Do you aim to present it on the web or in CD ROM form? Are you planning to use samples of student’s work? Are you going to use photographs? You will not be fully able to answer these questions at this stage but you will probably already have some preliminary ideas and it is important to write these down as they are developing.

2. If you are going to use a ‘working folio’ into which you are going to place archived material with its attached reflection comments you need to consider how you are going to keep these materials in order and what sort of categories you are going to use for the materials. You will not be able to fully answer these questions at this stage, but keep them in mind as you come to the next section on the stages involved in portfolio development. Ask yourself the following questions:

3. Are you going to store material electronically or in paper form? In the initial stages most find it useful to store material in a folder or filing cabinet from which the material can be easily retrieved when it is needed for building a portfolio for specific purposes. If you have the computer skills the storage can be in the form of a database and all of the material converted to a digital form for database storage. If you decide to develop an electronic portfolio it is necessary to determine the software tools most appropriate for the portfolio context and to determine which storage and presentation medium are most appropriate for the situation.

4. How are you going to organise the material so that you can easily retrieve it when it is needed? What specific categories will you use? A possibility that revolves around teaching standards is presented in the next section. However you might want to use a more generalise approach for the folio and use categories such as:

• professional responsibilities and activities;
• skills and general knowledge;
• specific subject/curriculum knowledge;
• general and subject specific pedagogy;
• organisation and management skills;
• knowledge of educational contexts;
• knowledge of educational ends, purposes and values
• contributions to the learning community; and
• personal qualities, interests and skills.

The structure and organisation of the final ‘product’ is something that will be visited again as the presentation of the portfolio moves from a working folio and into the professional portfolio with a purpose. However, having thought through some of these aspects you have a better idea of what it is that you are working towards. Keep in mind the ideas that you have developed so far as we move into the next section on the stages in the portfolio development and the actual putting together of and reflecting upon the portfolio content.