T4: Digital Professional Portfolios Pathways to Professional Development
Monday, March 18 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Clare R. Kilbane
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Natalie B. Milman
George Washington University
Instructor email: kilbane@educ.umass.edu
School districts and teacher preparation programs are challenged to provide educators opportunities to develop skills and knowledge required for the appropriate integration of educational technology with instruction in P-12 environments. But current efforts to do so are plagued with problems. Among these are that technology-related professional development often fails to
1) provide a meaningful context for educators’ development of knowledge and skills,
2) demonstrate the use of technology to make learning more efficient, effective, and engaging,
3) promote the creation of learning communities among groups of educators,
4) make experiences real and relevant for educators, and 5) address educators’ needs as adult learners.
This half-day non-hands-on tutorial is intended to provide teacher education faculty and school district personnel an opportunity to consider ways that designing professional development opportunities around educators’ creation of digital portfolios might address these common problems.
Designing professional development opportunities around the central experience of developing a digital portfolio enables the simultaneous accomplishment of many important objectives (Georgi & Crowe, 1998; McKinney, 1998).
First, it provides a meaningful context for the development of educators’ skills and knowledge related to technology (Milman, 2000). When educators learn to use software programs and hardware equipment for the purpose of documenting their own professional accomplishments, their investment of time and energy is justified. Also, they learn first-hand how technology promotes organizational and creative processes.
Second, this approach recognizes educators’ existing knowledge and skills by building on them to encourage the development of new knowledge and skills. Often educators feel insecure when learning about technology because they lack "capital" of value in this learning environment. They often know little about hardware and software and feel insecure about their potential success in such an unknown realm. Even those proficient in the use of technology often have difficulty integrating technology for instructional purposes. The portfolio development process allows teachers to bring their past successes with them when learning new skills in educational technology providing them much-needed security—making a new task less threatening and daunting.
Third, this approach lends itself to developing communities of learners (Kilbane & Milman, in press) that might support one another during and after professional development experiences. Nothing galvanizes a group more quickly than a common challenge. The acquisition and application of the many different skills required to create a high-quality digital teaching portfolio necessitates that groups of educators rely on each other. Educators learn to pool their collective resources when creating portfolios. The portfolio development process offers varied and numerous opportunities for educators to contribute what they know and share their knowledge with others. It brings appropriate emphasis on ideals of professionalism and creates professional communities.
Fourth, this strategy empowers educators to practice reflection (Lyons, 1998, 1999) and teaches them skills required for charting future professional growth. The portfolio development process requires teachers to examine the past, present, and future directions of their professional practice through thorough investigations of their teaching through artifacts (i.e., lesson plans, individualized education plans, educational philosophy statements).
In this session, the presenters will engage participants in a variety of activities that help participants explore the many ways that educators’ creation of digital teaching portfolios might improve the professional preparation of teachers (inservice and preservice) in general and technology in particular. Special attention will be paid to examining ways that preparation of digital professional portfolios might connect performance-based assessment and professional standards. Participants will learn about digital portfolios and their advantage over traditional, hard-copy portfolios, view various types of professional portfolios, and work with a matrix that evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various presentation environments that might be used for creating portfolios (PowerPoint, HTML, HyperStudio, etc.).
They will be encouraged to share the strategies for professional development currently employed by their organizational unit and engage in dialogue that illustrates how digital teaching portfolios might be incorporated into existing programs. In addition, they will see how portfolios might be designed around standards created by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the Interstate New Teachers Assessment Support Consortium (INTASC), and International Society for Technology in Education.