Category Archives: ePortfolios

Teacher Inquiry, Appraisal and Portfolios for Staff

ePortfolios, Teaching as Inquiry, , ,

This year we have recrafted our approach to teacher as inquiry (TAI) and its relationship to the school’s performance management process for teachers. There had always been a relationship between the two but now rather than being two separate systems and/or sets of documents, they are one in the same with a professional blog/portfolio being the container for all the important bits such as reflections, evidence and next steps.

Why have we done it this way? The approach is based on the underlying philosophy that a well planned and responsive TAI allows all teachers to demonstrate, first and foremost, the attributes of being an effective teacher of their students, and secondly, to show how they are meeting the various Professional Standards, Registered Teacher Criteria and Tataiako Cultural Competencies. So our starting point for an effective performance management process is an effective TAI, not a checklisty/compliance approach. It is strongly embedded in a ‘teacher agency’ professional autonomy approach too.

What does it look like? We retained all the successful things that were part of the previous inquiry approach. These included:

  1. Three in-school PLG meetings each term dedicated to teachers sharing progress towards their TAI targets
  2. Funding for each staff member to purchase professional texts and resources to support their TAI
  3. Personal Learning Opportunity (PLO) release for staff to research and/or visit expertise and sites of best practice related to their TAI

We also added in some additional components to inform our theory of action:

  1. Release for staff to deliberately gather student voice.
  2. Videoing of teaching for analysis.

Finally, we clearly set out the timeframe so that Term 1 was put aside for the focusing and teaching inquiry, terms 2 and 3 for the learning inquiry, and term 4 is all about summarising, sharing and celebrating progress.

You can check out this diagram to see what the process looks like over the first couple of terms in the year.

What did we get rid of? Nothing has been removed completely i.e. appraisal meetings, observations and walkthroughs still feature, it is just that hese have been streamlined and aligned to TAI. The major change that we have made is that the focus of the teacher’s TAI is the focus of their goals – their are no unrelated goals. Additionally, the term ‘goal’ is used quite broadly – there are no actual documented goals, rather there is a theory of action and falling out of that are the actions (i.e. goals) a teacher is working towards achieving.

So how does fit with performance management/appraisal? Individual teachers still have an appraisal document (overseen by the school’s  Teacher Performance Appraisal Procedure) which like any, summarises the process, their position at the school and provides a timeline. But that is all it does, everything else, including reflections, observation notes and professional learning  is in the portfolio.

The ‘usefulness’ of the TAI blog i.e. its ability to show how teachers are meeting their inquiry expectations, professional standards (PS), registered teacher criteria (RTC) and cultural competencies (CC) – all for their ongoing development, appraisal and registration purposes, is based on the approach that every time they post to their blog (evidence, a reflection, student voice etc), teachers critically reflect on which of the PS, RTC, CC they are meeting and show this in their blog.

This is done by using the labels feature in Blogger (our logical tool as a Google Apps for Ed school). Labels are like tags or key words related to a post. Teachers can use labels to show which of the PS, RTC and CC they are meeting. By approaching and setting up a blog in this way, teachers will essentially create an index, allowing them and their appraiser the ability to find evidence of progress and achievement against the PS, RTC, CC as well as their inquiry. The appraiser can also jump in there and add comments, post observation narratives, images and video too.

Tbroughtout the process, teachers need to ask themselves these questions:

  1. What professional standards am I working towards/meeting/demonstrating in this post?
  2. What Registered Teacher Criteria am I working towards/meeting/demonstrating in this post?
  3. What cultural competencies am working towards/meeting/demonstrating in this post?
  4. What aspects of TAI am I working towards/meeting/demonstrating in this post?

There is a full breakdown of how to set up a blog as described above and also how to make it private and readable by only those you choose.

What are the implications? This process puts the PS, RTC, CC into the everydayness of a TAI. Therefore teachers need to have a good grasp of what the PS, RTC, CC  are, what they mean and what they look like in practice. For us that means unpacking certain elements of these and listing the everyday teaching and learning approaches and strategies that reflect that areas to bring them to the forefront of consciousness.

To date the other major implication, which is not at all exclusive to this context, is the questioning of staff to each other to encourage us to continue, to force us to be honest, to suggest alternative interpretations and to prevent us from getting stuck.

Finally, this has not been an issue at all for us, part it has been questioned how this system would work if there was a question of competency with a staff member. While this has not been tested I do not see it as an issue. The process includes a ‘measure’ against the professional standards and other relevant criteria and when combined with the day to day observations and conversations that take place in a school, there is plenty of scope to identify an issues of competency.

What have been the outcomes to date? Here are a couple of screen shots of the portfolios to date.

What next? The system is established and time is required to allow the portfolios to develop and show their potential as teacher use them to show progress towards their TAI targets.

The challenge for me is to ensure that I regularly get into the blogs and provide encouragement and feedback/feedforward to teachers, supporting them and acknowledging the great work that they are doing.

#RegisteredTeacherCriteria #professionaleportfolios #performancemanagement #professionalstandards #Tataiako #teachingasinquiry

Walking the talk with Professional ePortfolios

ePortfolios, Teaching as Inquiry

The last couple of years have seen me do a bit of thinking and presenting in the area of eportfolios. Most of that has been when I am working alongside schools rather than in them. So now as a principal at Kumeroa-Hopelands School I am faced with the coal face of implementation. At this point in time we are not in a position to consider implementing eportfolios with our students. However as part of the school self-review, performance appraisal system was reviewed and updated which gave us a timely opportunity to have a go.

Step one was to co-construct with staff the relationships between teacher inquiry, the Registered Teacher Criteria, the Professional Standards and the cultural competencies as described in Tataiako. Staff created a model, using an inquiry model as central to their thinking and adding on the competencies and criteria to show how they all came together. This was a hugely worthwhile self-review process especially when teachers articulated the reasons why they placed or showed the relationships between the 3 areas. Justifying their choices painted a really interesting view on their beliefs about teaching and learning. An example of this is shown below.

As to the reason why we did this is pretty simple, I believe that an authentic and rich teaching as inquiry approach to teacher practice will demonstrate all of the registered teacher criteria and the cultural competencies and in doing so will provide all of the reflective evidence that teachers require to demonstrate their competency. Especially relevant when two of your teachers are PRTs.

KHS Performance Management Graphic

Step two for me was to use the outcomes of the review clarify the processes, relationships and key areas of the performance management process. I think in pictures so created a graphic to show these relationships. Central to the performance management is teachers engaging in teaching as inquiry. This relates directly back to their performance agreement which in turn relates back to the annual and strategic goals in the charter which in turn relates back to the teachers analysis of student achievement data both formal and informal. The key relationships to me are that the whole process is supported by relevant professional learning and development and that all relates to improving outcomes for learners.

Step three saw this feed into a matrix which showed the relationship between the performance standards, RTCs, teacher inquiry and Tataiako (big thanks to Regan and staff at Koputaroa for some great work here). This provided a more linear and usable view.

Step four involved transferring the all elements to an online space which for us is a Google Site. This best demonstrated by having a look at the basic empty site template which illustrates the matrix and how there is an expectation that staff are aligning their reflections to the PS, RTC, TAI and Cultural Competencies.

So what have we learnt so far?

  1. Having an online space to collate all of this documentation for both registration and appraisal purposes has many benefits including anytime, anywhere access, the ability for mentors to provide feedback, and the ease at which evidence can be linked to, uploaded or embedded.
  2. That we have lots of ongoing unpacking to do around the relationship between our practice and the PS, RTC, TAI and Cultural Competencies. At the moment we are skimming the surface of acknowledging these in our practice and require more practice and support in getting this right.
  3. Acknowledging that teachers reflect in different ways and through different methodologies. For example would you prefer to simply list the cultural competencies as outlined in Tataiako and reflect against these on a given schedule? Or would you prefer to reflect as and when required and then indicate if these reflections demonstrate or fit with the competencies?

And where to next?

  1. Engaging external expertise, especially in the area of Tataiako, to deepen our understanding of the Cultural Competencies.
  2. Develop some kind of micro self-review system so that we can clearly identify areas of weakness and where we need to develop further.
  3. Review the whole set-up with staff towards the end of 2012.

#ICTPDNationalGoal2 #RegisteredTeacherCriteria #Tataiako #teachingasinquiry

ePortfolios in the news

ePortfolios, ,

There has been a few interesting references made to ePortfolios that have landed in my Reader inbox over the last week or so.

A good contrast too from;

E-portfolios have taken up more conference time and wasted effort than almost any other learning technology topic I can recall.

to

What the portfolio provides is something richer than just a number or a grade… It provides a depth of understanding for both the learner and the observer.

Here’s a selection:

1. E-portfolios – 7 reasons why I don’t want my life in a shoebox

An interesting and provocative blog post outlining some of the reasons why eportfolios have not had any real impact within education and beyond taken perhaps from a narrow point of view. The ongoing discussion in the comments section is great and adds another valuable dimension for using this post to reflect on and ask questions about your eportfolio use and purpose. Well worth a read.

2. E-Portfolios Evolve Thanks to Web 2.0 Tools

On the flip side this article from the Education Week promotes the use of eportfolios as a method of showcasing student progress. It discusses the authentic nature of eportfolios allowing students to showcase their skills and intelligence, discusses the challenges (time and access) and gives examples of Web 2.o tools being used. Perhaps nothing new here but a good affirmation for those practitioners with similar goals and methods.

3. Creating Student e-Portfolios with Google Sites

This resource came through the K12 Eportfolios Google Group, which you may like to consider signing up for. It is a 5 unit Moodle course on creating students eportfolios using Google Sites. Written by Jen Hegna, it is released under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Each unit has a Read, Discuss, Activity, Reflect, Evaluate, Checklist learning design sequence and a wide range of relevant and excellent material is used and referenced throughout. A great resource.

4. Do e-Portfolios make a difference to student outcomes?

An interesting question has been posed in the VLN ePortfolio group:

We are wondering what/if any data schools are using to see if an e-Porftfolio is making a difference to student outcomes. Some our teachers are beginning a Teacher Action Inquiry and need some baseline data so we can see if they have make a difference. Any thoughts?

It would be great to see some responses in there to this question. If you are not a member of the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), consider joining and participating in this and other discussion about teaching and learning.

5. Eportfolios – J’accuse

Similar in some ways to the 7 reasons why above, this post from The Ed Techie unpacks a number of issues around institutionalised and over complicated eportfolios. A strong case is made for blogs being a better means of achieving eportfolios than specific eportfolio systems. Also, like above, the comments section is hugely valuable where different points of view are offered and counter arguments reinforced. Another worthwhile read.

Enjoy.

#GoogleSites #student #Web20 #outcomes #ePortfolios

More on Registered Teacher Criteria and Professional ePortfolios

ePortfolios, Teachers, Teaching as Inquiry, , ,

In a previous post I discussed some initial thoughts around a potential relationship between the Registered Teacher Criteria and professional eportfolios. I mentioned teaching as inquiry in the post but not in any great detail about how it might work and look.

So inspired by conversation, feedback and other people’s thinking let’s make that step by taking the Teaching as Inquiry framework, central to effective pedagogy as outlined in the NZC to underpin the process. By starting with teaching as inquiry (TaI) and using it as the foundation for professional appraisal and teacher registration, we are reinforcing the core focus of teaching (and therefore the appraisal & portfolio) to achieve improved outcomes for all students.

Inspired by how Rocky mapped her thinking out I have played around with how the 12 criteria align with teacher inquiry shown below using the graphic from Timperley’s Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Educational Practices Series, p. 26-27). The orange text boxes are the original cycle, with the pink boxes the 12 criteria matched to the best fit stage of the inquiry. The exception being criteria 1, 2 and 3 which to me are more global and integrate throughout hence how they form a mini-cycle in the middle. (I like this graphic over others as it includes specific reference to role of leaders in schools.)

Secondly below using the slightly different cycle graphic from Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES). Both of these examples are indicative only, and you could argue that some of the criteria fit better with another stage in the inquiry. Would be a good activity to complete with teachers if you were heading down this track…

TaI is a cyclic and ongoing process as teachers continually reflect on their practice within a whole range of levels from micro to bigger global objectives. The diagram is represents that way. I am fully in favour of formalising and in some way recording this process, integrating it into teaching and learning and the school’s professional learning programme. Appraisal systems in place are not always naturally ongoing, responsive, immediate… they are generally summative, ‘completed’ a couple of times a year rather than being living and formative. An exception to this would perhaps be the mentoring of a PRT…

So I would want to use the RTC in a cyclic and ongong manner too… and reference it within a professional eportfolio.

So what might that look like in practice when it is captured and shared within an eportfolio?

You could take an approach similar to this Mahara/MyPortfolio template. While this approach is very functional and mirrors a traditional ‘filling out a document’ approach, its strength would be in the ability to provide feedback to the teacher within MyPortfolio but I have a lot of unanswered questions regarding its use. In a worse case scenario, this approach could just become something you complete when your rego is due or within the performance management process, you just share it with your appraiser when required. It doesn’t directly reinforce the benefits of TaI nor show an ongoing cycle of reflection and next steps.

If I were in a postion to lead this in a school then I would favour a blog/journal approach rather than a page. Whether using WordPress, Blogger or the blogging capacity within MyPortfolio, the tool is not important rather the ability to tag (or label or categorise) your entries and display these tags as either a list or cloud. This then becomes your blog index allowing you to select the posts which relate to and provide evidence towards the appropriate registered teacher criteria.

What is also really important to note that in this approach you don’t go out and write a post on “how I have achieved and reflected upon Criteria 4”. Instead your ongoing reflections, inquiry into practice, involvement in professional learning and development, mentoring, obvservations, staff meetings, teaching practice and so on, are blogged/reflected on as and when they happen, and any association with the criteria is noted.

It also removes the ‘timed’ appraisal. The mid-year, end-of-year, or other times for appraisals are a bit old schoolish. It’s a bit like waiting until the end of term to receive your child’s portfolio, out of date and past its usefulness in order to really contribute to new learning…

To me it is a bit of a no brainer, one system that caters for a record of teacher inquiry, clearly linked to registration criteria, evidence, authentic appraisal and reflection. And just to add one more to the mix is how the culmination of all of this within a professional portfolio can be central to a professional network. Why is it that we tend to be so protective and private when it comes to all of this stuff… sharing it with an audience has so many potential benefits…

How does your school manage this/these process(es)? Silos? I am always or the look out for examples of professional teacher eportfolios, with reference to TaI and RTC or not. Do you have any to share?

#PLN #RegisteredTeacherCriteria #professionaleportfolios #teachingasinquiry #ePortfolios #appraisal

Online Moderation

ePortfolios, ,

Towards the end of last year I had a couple of conversations with different people at different ends of the country. Both conversation mentioned three ideas, unrelated at the time; eportfolios, moderation & National Standards.

However it got me thinking if there was a relationship between the three and while this post has been sitting on the tip of my fingers for a while,with the recent development of the Moderation Online component in MyPortfolio it is time to get my thoughts down.

Assessment Online has a great section on moderation, clearly defining moderation, outlining its purpose, and providing resources and suggested processes for implementing it in a school or cluster. My only issues with this resource is that it does not take into account the possibilities and potential of how technology can connect educators together enabling a national or global network of moderation.

Moderation is the process of teachers sharing their expectations and understanding of standards with each other in order to improve the consistency of their decisions about student learning. Assessment Online (2010).

So what does this mean when the word online is slotted in at the front of the definition? Does it still make sense?

Online moderation is the process of teachers sharing their expectations and understanding of standards with each other in order to improve the consistency of their decisions about student learning.

I think so and can see it happening in a couple of ways. In the first scenario shown below the moderation process is brought about from a teacher sharing a sample of student learning and their initial assessment of it in their professional eportfolio.

Once posted in the teacher’s eportfolio, the process of moderating the assessment can begin by drawing on the views, expertise and the two way sharing of other learning examples with other educators in the teacher’s PLN.  This process is replicated face to face many times throughout NZ each year, both within schools and across clusters. What changes here is that the process has moved to an online space/eportfolio, opening up the depth and breadth of moderation.

Elements of this have been online for some time, except that it has been a one way situation where robust dialogue and the sharing of ideas has been absent. The best example of this is how examplars have been posted on TKI/Assessment Online, but embedding this in a collaborative online space will provide a much richer resource professional discourse. More  schools and clusters are also beginning to use tools such as voicethread to start moderation conversations of student learning.

I can see a lot of potential in this moderation process as part of a teacher’s eportfolio (sure it can happen in other online spaces but when you throw in evidence for the Registered Teacher Criteria, a professional eportfolio is all about working smart).

The second situation where standards, eportfolios and moderation could work is shown below.

In this instance, it is initially student directed where they are responsible for selecting work to represent achievement of a standard. This is shared with their teacher and in turn with other relevant personnel who are able to share and post other examples of learning as a reference. Once the moderation is complete, the outcome of the moderated assessment is given to the learner and the teacher is more informed about teaching and can plan the appropriate next steps. As with the first example, elements of this are happening in and across school but not necessarily in an online space or as part of an eportfolio process.

If I look at the two scenarios above, they both have advantages. The first example can work across any age level from ECE to tertiary and from students with special needs to mainstream and can easily be aligned to the teaching as inquiry framework. The second scenario involves the student as part of the process critically reflecting on their learning, both independently and teacher guided, so the moderation additionally has close ties to assessment for learning practice. Both are about the teacher building their understanding and capability to consistently assess student learning, build self-review skills and put in place improved teaching programmes for improved student outcomes.

The scenarios outlined above are the first two examples that came to mind of how the possible relationship between standards, eportfolios and moderation might actually look in practice. What I would love to know is how you may already be doing this, how you are moderating online and how an eportfolio may be part of this process. What I would also like to know is what framework the new Moderation Online space is built around, or whether it is more organic and will develop as users needs are recognised.

If you have any answers to these questions I would love to hear from you.

#ePortfolios #moderation #nationalstandards #RegisteredTeacherCriteria

ePortfolios on the wire

ePortfolios,

A couple of eportfolio developments that have come up over the last week or so that may be of interest to readers.

Digication ePortfolios

The first is the Digication ePortfolio Google Apps addon posted by Helen Barrett on the K12 ePortfolio Google Group.

More information about the Digication eportfolio tool can be found in this additional video and PDF. It is an eportfolio tool in its own right, but now has the ability to be included in your Google Apps package for you school. This gives you the ability to create unlimited eportfolios for staff and students within your school through their Google Apps account. As Helen writes:

This is a very exciting development. The combination of GoogleDocs/Sites for collection/integration of technology into the curriculum, Blogger for day-to-day reflection/documentation of learning, and now Digication for presentaton/reflection/showcase makes GoogleApps Education Edition the strongest platform for K-12 schools to implement e-portfolios.

While the videos above show how easy it is to set-up and construct your Digication eportfolio, it is not clear how a teacher, mentor, coach or another student is able to participate in the learning process of the eportfolio and provide feedback and comments. Even if this option only caters for the presentation/showcasing element of an eportfolio, I still think commenting and feedback has a place.

What it is reinforcing is the increasing potential of Google Apps in your school to be the central portal to your learning and school administration spaces, especially as more and more education solutions are added to the marketplace.

MyPortfolio

MyPortfolio is an eportfolio tool provided to New Zealand schools built on the Mahara eportfolio platform. In a recent press release, it has been announced that this service will continue to be provided free to schools until the end of 2013. This is great news and reinforces the Ministry of Education’s continued support of eportfolios for teachers and students in NZ schools.

Not only is the service confirmed as being free, it has also been updated to include a wide range of new features and improvements. More information on these enhancements can be read in this document but for me the most interesting development is in the new Moderation Online tool.

I think online moderation has huge potential for teaching and learning, if not just to get teachers collaborating and participating online unpacking and reflecting on learning. I see it as having such a close relationship if not being integral to a teacher’s professional eportfolio. I have yet to have a play with this new functionality but thanks to Paul Seiler at the MOE, I am all set up and ready to see how it works. More to come on this.

ePortfolio Guidelines for Beginners

The Ministry’s MLE team has recently published a draft set of eportfolio guidlelines:

If you are interested in finding out more about digital portfolios then these guidelines will increase your understanding of the emerging importance and place of ePortfolios in the education of our children. The guidelines are aimed primarily at, but not limited to, a non-technical audience with limited prior knowledge of ePortfolios. If you are a school leader, then the guidelines should provide you with sufficient understanding to enable you to consider the place of ePortfolios in your school’s ongoing educational strategy.

Download the guidelines here.

#HelenBarrett #GoogleApps #Mahara #Digication #myportfolio #ePortfolios #MLE

Dimensions and Dashboards

eLearning, ePortfolios,

I have been doing some reflection recently around eportfolios and the different flavours that are out there to select from. I have categorised each flavour  as a ‘dimension’ below.

The basis for this discussion is really considering what an eportfolio should be and defining a tool that is as authentic as possible. The problem with most eportfolio systems is that the eportfolio is not the central working (learning) space, it is generally a space where learning is brought to and then shared and reflected upon. There is a lack of authenticity here and often a double handling of learning artefacts. So the question… is there a dimension of eportfolios that removes or minimises this issue? Enter the Google Teacher Dashboard, more on that below.

In a traditional sense this is a similar conversation to the portfolio book vs. book look debate. In this situation a dedicated book or folder is the portfolio and examples of learning are filed or glued in or completed directly on the page. A book look is just as it seems, students share the books they use during the normal course of their learning. The first could be considered as being artificial, the second authentic, one manufactured, the other raw…

When we consider this difference in a digital frame, what does it look like? Are current methodologies of eportfolio use really authentic? Do they clearly show the learning process? Are they capable of supporting all learning? Are eportfolios a true representation of the learning or just a snapshot?

Perhaps some clarity around this can be found in the dimensions…

Dimension 1: The Dedicated

A dedicated eportfolio system such as Mahara.

Dimension 2: The Managed

The eportfolio functionality or module built in or attached to a learning management system such as UltraNet, KnowledgeNet, Moodle etc.

Dimension 3: The Blogged

ePortfolios that are contained within an online tool such as Blogger, WordPress, Wikispaces, Weebly etc.

Dimension 4: The Mashed

An eportfolio that is not contained in any one place. It draws on the functionality of several online spaces and web technologies, using the best features of those tools to create and share learning. An example could be this netvibes dashboard.

Dimension 5: The Saved

ePortfolios that are created using desktop software and are not online. They are typically shared after being saved to a disk. Common software for this includes PowerPoint, Keynote, iWeb etc.

Dimension 6: The Integrated

ePortfolios that are seamlessly integrated into the way students are learning. It is a direct reference to the work being done by Hapara with their Teacher Dashboard.

You may consider the Teacher Dashboard as not being an eportfolio at all, more a customised Google LMS. I too do not see the Dashboard itself as an eportfolio, more a window into a student’s eportfolio. The more I think about it, the more I realises that the Dashboard is integrated into what can be seen as an extremely powerful eportfolio system, one that re conceptualises current frameworks. Current eportfolio systems (i.e. dimensions 1 -5 above) have not really done anything radically different in terms of presenting an eportfolio. I know that fans of Mahara and its views would probably disagree with that, but current eportfolios are still spaces where the learning is (generally) taken to, rather than produced and there is so much learning that is ‘missing’.

The Dashboard is built on students working in the cloud, learning with tools provided through the might of Google Apps. The Dashboard is the teacher’s window into this cloud, enabling managing and tracking these spaces with ease but more importantly seeing every step of the process, identifying progress and enabling more personalised and just-in-time feedback.

Student control and sharing is not lost with the functionality of sharing docs, sites or your blog retained, both within and out of the domain as per a normal Apps or Blogger account. The Dashboard and the behind the scenes set-up provides a framework for students to work and share in. Schools determine the framework for how the student environment is organised and what is seen in the Dashboard. Additionally, the Dashboard draws in other student data by integrating with your SMS.

So as a potential eportfolio system it is different… the key difference for me is that the central working (learning) space is accessible and therefore builds in more capacity for support and learning conversations than conventional eportfolio tools. This is the closest digital version of a book look I have seen.

Is the Dashboard the future of eportfolios? Take the time to read the post on the Hapara blog. Consider the potential. Don’t think of it with your current eportfolio hat on, look beyond that and what an eportfolio will look like when students are increasingly working online.

What makes the difference between the Dashboard just being a great way of managing and monitoring student activity within Apps and also being a great eportfolio system? Perhaps this hinges on access. If students are learning in a highly digital environment with 1-1 or similar access and in Apps, then it will work like a dream. To be honest even if student access is not that high, I would still grab the opportunity. If you have Google Apps for your school, you are going to want Teacher Dashboard. Whether that fits your eportfolio framework and dimension is over to you but the potential here is huge.

#GoogleApps #eLearning #Hapara #cloud #TeacherDashboard #ePortfolios

Registered Teacher Criteria and ePortfolios

ePortfolios, Teachers, Teaching as Inquiry, , , ,

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:

  1. to describe the essential professional, relationships and values required for successful teaching.
  2. to promote quality teaching for all learners
  3. to guide the professional learning and the assessment of teachers as they work towards full registration
  4. for the assessment of teachers to maintain a practising certificate/full registration
  5. to guide career long professional learning and development
  6. to provide a common language for professional reflection and dialogue
  7. to promote the status of the teaching profession
  8. to strengthen public confidence in the profession

It is suggested that evidence against the criteria can be gathered a number of ways including;

  1. Observation: formal with structured feedback and next steps.
  2. Discussion: including meetings, structured mentoring, critical self-reflection.
  3. 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:

  1. 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?
  2. 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?
  3. 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..?

#Mahara #NZTC #reflection #RegisteredTeacherCriteria #NewZealandTeachersCouncil #evidence #discussion #myportfolio #observation

CORE Breakfast Seminar on ePortfolios

Assessment for Learning, ePortfolios

ePortfolio presentation given at a CORE Education Breakfast Seminar.

Some of the main points from the presentation:

  1. clarify your purpose (pedagogy) before your technology (eportfolio tool)
  2. the eportfolio becomes the vehicle for drawing in the components of effective pedagogy and assessment
  3. engage all stakeholders in discussion about the purpose and expectations surrounding eportfolios
  4. the eportfolio learning process is complex and cyclic, mirroring our expectation of teachers engaging in teaching as inquiry
  5. quality feedback, reflection and next steps are integral for eportfolios to support learning and attainment of goals

Eports breakie

View more presentations from Nick Rate.

#AssessmentforLearning #COREEducation #ePortfolios