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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2010
The nature of a teaching portfolio
A teaching portfolio is a collection of documents and other items that provides information about different aspects of a teacher's work. It serves to describe and document the teacher's performance, to facilitate professional development, and to provide a basis for reflection and review. Like many of the procedures described in this book, it is another form of teacher development that is built around self-appraisal and teacher-directed learning. Evans (1995, p. 11) characterizes the nature of a portfolio in the following way:
A professional portfolio is an evolving collection of carefully selected or composed professional thoughts, goals, and experiences that are threaded with reflection and self-assessment. It represents who you are, what you do, why you do it, where you have been, where you are, where you want to go, and how you plan on getting there.
A portfolio consists of a set of different types of documents and artifacts that have been selected on a principled basis (see below) and that are organized to tell a story. The collection is updated and revised when needed and is accompanied by the teacher's account of the rationale behind the collection. The portfolio can both serve as the basis for self-appraisal and be a component of the teacher's assessment.
Purpose and benefits of creating a portfolio
Teachers we have worked with find that a portfolio serves a number of purposes. First, it provides a demonstration of how a teacher approaches his or her work and presents evidence of the teacher's thinking, creativity, resourcefulness, and effectiveness.
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