Registered Teacher Criteria and ePortfolios
Further to my thoughts on whether teachers should have their own eportfolio, I have spent some time reading up on the Registered Teacher Criteria which have begun to progressively replace the existing Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions this year.
The Criteria are designed:
- to describe the essential professional, relationships and values required for successful teaching.
- to promote quality teaching for all learners
- to guide the professional learning and the assessment of teachers as they work towards full registration
- for the assessment of teachers to maintain a practising certificate/full registration
- to guide career long professional learning and development
- to provide a common language for professional reflection and dialogue
- to promote the status of the teaching profession
- to strengthen public confidence in the profession
It is suggested that evidence against the criteria can be gathered a number of ways including;
- Observation: formal with structured feedback and next steps.
- Discussion: including meetings, structured mentoring, critical self-reflection.
- Documentation: collections of evidence including reflective journals, analysis of learners assessment, records, PD
Needless to say, an eportfolio would be the perfect container for bringing all of these elements together. What a great opportunity for school leaders to ‘encourage’ staff to create an online space as an authentic collection of evidence and critical reflection to demonstrate successful teaching.
I do have a couple of questions/challenges for the NZTC:
- Instead of providing (i.e. Word templates) which use a text based solution for teacher self-assessment against the criteria, why not provide an online tool that allows teachers, school leaders etc. to access, revisit, comment on where teachers are at? Sure, lots will do this using Google Docs, but how could we be more proactive in getting teachers online, creating PLNs, and using the tools we all expect our students to?
- Why is there no mention or modeling of how this evidence will be collated? How exciting would it be if the NZTC gave us access to an ePortfolio account using Mahara through myportfolio or similar. Or is the old process i.e. evidence is text based, printed out, highlighted and sloted into clear files still OK?
- My concern is that we have a new set of criteria, so change going to happen already, but we are not going to make the most of it. Why not grab this opportunity to move this process into the 21st Century with the use of some collaborative learning tools?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaint at all regarding the criteria, gathering evidence, critical reflection and discussion. I can see them dovetailing quite nicely with a Teaching as Inquiry approach. My questions are more process based about packaging this up in order to ‘present’ your professional outcomes.
And… it is not all doom and gloom. If you watch the Part B of the introductory DVD, portfolios do get a mention. I just couldn’t catch if there was an ‘e’ on the front…
Also, I wasn’t able to attend any of the provided workshops for this, so maybe these points were discussed..?
Thank you a thought provoking post. As a 2nd year beginning teacher who will be applying for full registration at the end of the year I have all these criteria in mind. I have got my students using e-portfolios this year for the first time and have been thinking that I should be leading by example. I have started collating an ePortfolio wiki, however the education system seems more interested in assessing my paperwork, not my reflective blogs, ePortfolios or collaborative wikis. We seem to be leading the change from the bottom.
Kia ora Nick
I read your post with interest. In some of the early childhood centres that we have worked with in the ECE ICT PL programmes and more recently in Mentoring Programmes we have strongly encouraged teachers to keep reflective blogs for their Teacher Registration journey (our chosen platform being Blogger). Several teachers have already submitted these to Teachers Council as part of their documentation to move from provisionally registered to fully registered teachers. All of them were successful in receiving their full registration. Since then a handful of the centres I work with have all teachers undergoing supervised teacher registration document through the use of the blog. There are some stunning examples of video reflections and in-depth reflections based on TED videos. Those teachers that are supervising the provisionally registered teachers have noted that it has been a very worthwhile experience and much easier to provide in-depth advice and guidance.
I attended the PD provided for the RTC (registered teacher criteria) with several early childhood centre owners and got the impression that the RTC would be for everybody wanting to become fully registered and stay fully registered. As a result, some of the managers have implemented online portfolios for every teacher using the RTC as ‘labels’. Then looking beyond the portfolio as a registration process but an ongoing self appraisal document. So far, we have sourced some exciting conversations because it has allowed those conversations to occur just in time, anytime, anyplace and anywhere.
I know the ECE environment is quite different to the schooling sector so look forward to hearing from others on this topic.
@Naketa Ikihele
Hi Naketa,
Thanks for the comment and even more for the wonderful success stories you have shared regarding the use of reflective blogs to show teacher registration journeys. Fantastic to know and reinforce that it is happening. Let’s hope that the TRC take notice and provide resourcing to make it commonplace rather than in pockets.
Great idead using the blog’s labels (categories/tags) to provide access to those posts which are RTC specific.
Cheers.
Nick
Nick, a good post, thanks. To borrow from Nike, “Just do it!”. An increasing number of teachers are starting to keep a professional journal/portfolio in an electronic form. Many I know are using http://www.myportfolio.school.nz. Although not the only e-portfolio tool it is a solid, fee-free service used by 100-200 NZ schools (mostly students). Some schools have even decided to start with staff and then let each teacher introduce his/her class to it. The more teachers who start to use it the easier it is for the Ministry (or NZTC) to justify investment specific to teacher needs.
Paul Seiler
I also believe that teacher eportfolios in whatever form (love the blog example using labels from @Naketa above) is the way forward. Having our students work through an inquiry process that is documented through online tools is something that many schools have begun to explore so why is this not something that teachers should do as part of the appraisal process as well as for teacher registration.
I have seen some great examples of this in action. Bucklands Beach Intermediate in Auckland have begun to trial the use of teacher eportfolios using KnowledgeNet. They outline teacher goals and then have evidence in the form of teacher reflection and embedded digital content. They started off with a group of teachers as part of the trial but the idea is to roll this out for all teachers.
As I am applying for Full Registration at the end of this term, this blog has inspired me to upgrade my PD wiki into an ePortfolio. I am hoping to be able to submit this in addition to my huge paper folder. However I have no examples to know if I am on the right track, is it ok to ask for advice on my ePortfolio wiki here?
@Mr Wood
I can set your school up on myportfolio.school.nz – there are now 250 schools registered including some ECE.
Canterbury, Victoria and Auckland University Colleges of Education are using this for teacher registration using myportfolio.ac.nz. There are now over 3000 student teachers in primary and post primary using myportfolio. If you know someone who is studying here then they should be able to offer some advice. There is usually a template that is provided to student teachers to help guide them.
Teachers need to practice what they preach, I reckon. Most schools these days do have e-portfolios, class blogs etc., so to be up with the play, cutting edge, or super fly, teachers need to get into it!
Hi,
great reading these comments re using eportfolios for Registered Teacher Criteria. I work as a secondary facilitator for Team Solutions and most of my work is to do with registered teacher criteria. I agree wholeheartedly that the reflective journal for PRTs should be digitised rather than the extra paperwork that it seems to be requiring at present. I am not a technology expert but am interested in elearning so have an idea of what the keeping of evidence in secondary schools should look like but not sure how to make it work.
I have written documents aligning RTC with the curriculum and Ka Hikitia see here http://prtteamsolutions.wikispaces.com/Teacher+Registration, the purpose being to show that work on the curriculum, aligns nicely with evidence required for RTCs so you don’t need to keep repeating the evidence bur rather just know how to link to it. The same goes for appraisal. So a teacher would accumulate a body of evidence which could be used for multi purposes – hard to sell in the secondary schools I have been working in but would like to see the concept operating successfully somewhere in a secondary school if anyone knows of one.
Cheryl
@Cheryl Harvey
Hi Cheryl,
Great comments. The team at Papanui High School are looking into using e portfolios for a basis for Academic Counselling. If you want to see how it goes, we are starting to iron out the issues now in preparation for 2011 start.
Secondary schools do need to become more ‘savvy’ about the smart use of information, to engage community & whanau in the process.
I and a small group of teachers here are in a PLG group working on our own portfolios at present, so hopefully will become a successful example of their use soon!
Catherine
@Catherine Johnson
Hi Catherine,
I would be really interested in what you sre doing at Papanui High School. I agree that secondary schools need to become more savvy – trying to persuade them of that is an uphill battle. Would love to see some working examples. Have tried to provide these myself in my 2 blogs http://cherylchristineharvey.edublogs.org/ and
http://prtteamsolutions.blogspot.com/ but because I am not in a school they are somewhat contrived. My most successful blog os http://cherylharveyphotoblog.blogspot.com/ because that is what I am passionately interested in – there is a lesson there of course.
Contact me at c.harvey@auckland.ac.nz
Hi,
Very new to all this, maybe a silly question but… I am ECE teacher wanting to use some form of web based plateform to document my ongoing RTC. I have read from the above posts that some ECE centres are using myportfolio’s ?? how do I acess this and are there any other free options available??
Thanks
Hi Nadia, MyPortfolio http://myportfolio.school.nz is a free eportfolio option provided to schools in NZ at no cost. For more information regarding MyPortfolio head over to https://sites.google.com/site/myportfolionz/ or the MyPortfolio FAQs http://myportfolio.school.nz/support.php#what-is-myportfolio.
In regard to your question, are there any other free options available? Absolutely, a number of schools in NZ are using combination of google docs and sites to document evidence and ongoing progress towards RTC, appraisal and teaching as inquiry. Lots of evidence too of teachers using blogs for the same purpose. Any of the options have their own pros and cons, it is really over to you what this may look like. I can put you in touch of some teachers who have examples they could share with you. Let me know.
Cheers, Nick