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Focus question: How can teachers and students use digital portfolios as tools for learning?

A teacher will be evaluated throughout their career, which sets the context for developing a digital teaching portfolio. Digital teaching portfolios is where teachers store a collection of educational and professional materials in an electronic format. It allows teachers to organize a collection of educational materials, which shows their growth and development over time. The digital portfolio may contain Word documents, PowerPoint, videos, pictures, and copies of paper materials.

In this class, we are creating our own portfolios where we can store our educational materials. Once we finish it, we will be able to provide career-related information to teaching colleagues and school administrators. It will be a way to store activities, ideas, field experiences, summer work, and community volunteering over time. These portfolios give us an opportunity as future teachers to reflect on our developments.

Portfolios can be used to “connect teaching skills and competencies to teaching or curriculum standards as way to show that new teacher candidates are qualified to receive a license or…to remain as the teacher-in-charge in the classroom” (Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, 2011). It enables us as future teachers to acquire a distinguishing quality of master teachers and to think critically and creatively. It’s a good idea to update your portfolio so it won’t become a “celebratory scrapbook of the past,” but promote growth and change in our minds and works. Students will be able to use to portfolios for their personal and public piece of writing. It’s easier to store electronically because teachers and students can take it anywhere without having to worry about missing pages. It will also increase their confidence and technological skills.

Tech Tool Link: Survey and Poll Resources and Apps

In this class, we have used poll apps before with our cell phones. Surveys and polls online are ways to generate discussions in classrooms and conduct instructional preassessments. The article provides some websites and apps for teachers to look up. SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool that can be used to formulate questions and collect information. Poll Everywhere is a texting app that is used to submit responses to questions using cell phones.

Summary & Connection:

This chapter examines on the role of assessment in teaching and learning. Teachers evaluate the students learning by using assessments. Assessments have three interrelated elements: new teacher assessment, student assessment, and student self-assessment. Student assessment is how teachers will assess students’ learning while new teacher assessment is how supervisors will assess the teacher’s work. Student self-assessment is when students are active in the evaluation of their own learning. Assessments let teachers’ know where they need to change and what other strategies to use. Digital portfolios is a way for teachers to see their own growth and development over time.

Students involved in their learning and assessment will motivate them more to complete the assignment. Students have little or no influence on curriculum topics in many classrooms. It’s an opportunity lost when a teacher fails to give students a voice in decision-making. Students can use digital portfolios to learn more about how to use computers and other tools. It can also increase their confidence. This chapter also explains with how online surveys enable students to self-reflect about their learning.

Resources:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B.P. (2011). Transforming learning with new technologies. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.