Understand your ePortfolio

On this page you will:​​

• Read about your ePortfolio

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What is the ePortfolio?
There are three basic types of ePortfolios: 

• Developmental or Process ePortfolios.  Purpose: Demonstrate development over a period of time. 
• Assessment ePortfolios.  Purpose: demonstrate competency as defined by program standards and outcomes.
• Showcase ePortfolios.  Purpose: demonstrate exemplary work and student skills. 

Your ePortfolio will be a hybrid of all three types of ePortfolios.

The Context for the ePortfolio

The ePortfolio is designed to be an individualized representation of you and your achievements in the VIU Education program.  Many students use the ePortfolio as part of their resume; as a place to house resources and ideas for easy retrieval; as a class Web site; as a lesson plan and unit organizer; and much more. 

Your ePortfolio is designed to highlight your professional qualities, background knowledge, capacity to plan and capacity to teach -- abilities that constitute a competent beginning teacher. These aspects were drawn from the BC Teacher Regulation Branch (BC TRB) Standards for the educational competence and professional conduct of educators in BC. Collectively, these competencies present accurate directives of what professional educators should know and be able to do. They serve as a tribute to teachers – highlighting the important and skillful work of our proud and learned profession.

Your ePortfolio highlights evidence (projects, lesson plans, reflections, workshops you have provided...) of your competencies in reference to these aspects and includes self-reflections on your personal context for learning. Teaching is a profession, governed by a certifying body. Your e-portfolio clearly identifies your strengths and your capacity to teach and learn as a professional educator.

Content of the ePortfolio 
Right now, part of your purpose is to complete the various assignments required by your instructors during the program. As you progress, the content will become less about requirements and more about your personal goals for the ePortfolio (other than the TRB Standards).

To Think About
As you progress in the program, think about how you might make use of the ePortfolio... what will you include in the ePortfolio and how might you utilize it beyond program requirements.

• Is it a showcase of the professional you?
• Will it be your professional site, with your Blog, that people can follow if they wish?
• Is it going to be your curation of lessons and resources?  (This has worked really well for folks.)
• Is it a place for students to access lessons and resources?
• Is it something you might wish to use in a job interview?
• Is it all of the above?
• What do you see your site including?

NOTE: If you do not know what you want to do with your ePortfolio, then please assume you will do all of the above.  You can always make changes later.

Once you have a sense of your goals, you may wish to prioritize your goals so that you can ensure your site design best implements your purpose.  It is common for your goals to develop as your ePortfolio develops, making re-design a continuous process. Sometimes your goals will determine how you handle the navigation and content of your site. 

Example: The ePortfolio has been utilized by some as a tool to help acquire a teaching position.  Imagine that you have decided to mention your ePortfolio in a job interview, and you even have relevant pages ready to show the interviewing administrator... perhaps an assessment strategy you used in practicum.  
Later, an administrator is trying to decide between you and another person.  She asked questions in the interview about assessment, but does not feel she has the full measure of any of the candidates around this ever important area.  She remembers you showing her a portion of your ePortfolio and decides to see if your ePortfolio has anything she can use to help her make a decision.

• How easy would it be for her to find your curations of assessment thoughts and actions?
• How much information would she have to work with?  Would there be enough for her to make a judgement?
• Would the information be well-organized?
• Would the information she finds paint a clear enough picture of your thoughts, beliefs and actions around assessment.
• Would there be examples?

This could be asked about almost any aspect of your traits as a teacher.
For Avi, one of your ePortfolio instructors, in his time as an administrator interviewing teachers, he was looking for evidence of:

• Strong classroom management
• Strong relationship-building
• Openness to new approaches
• Willingness to work very hard
• Willingness to work as part of a team
• Willingness to give up the "expert, sage on the stage" model of teaching.  He was looking for inquiry learning, project-based learning, social learning..., anything that placed the teacher in an advisory or coaching role.
• And, although it was not "kosher" to do so, a willingness to work with students outside of the normal classroom schedule (coaching, clubs, extra help...)

Avi recently sent the above list to a national award-winning principal, Kevin Reimer, to see if he had a comment.  His response:
That is a pretty comprehensive list and I don’t have much to add.
The only thing I might add is based on John Hattie’s research: The ability to give formative feedback is the number one driver of student success, and that makes sense to me. I would also add the ability to accelerate or remediate the instruction based on the student’s needs. In addition, the ability to make data-driven decisions that guide instruction.

And once you have started designing, continuously ask yourself: 

• What content do I need to be adding to fulfill my purpose?
• Does the site design best implement my purpose?  Do I need to diagram my design before starting to make changes?​

Questions and thoughts for you to consider:

• What would you like your audience to see first? 
• Would you like an image of you?  Buttons to a couple of areas you wish to highlight.  Perhaps a "Learning Journey" blog, or a "Work I am proud of..." set of pages.  
• First impressions are very important, as is the ease of navigation on the site.

Want more on the what and why of ePortfolios?

Three ePortfolio Styles: https://sites.google.com/site/eportfolioapps/overview/levels
More on portfolios: http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/portfolios.htm