Empowering Educators: ePortfolios in Teacher Education
ePortfolios are widely used in teacher education programs, and the following nine chapters demonstrate how they can effectively be used at a program or individual course level. The chapters explore the role of ePortfolios in preparing and supporting future teachers. The first chapter, ‘ePortfolios as an Overarching, High-Impact Practice for Teacher Education Programs,’ documents the use of ePortfolios at the program level. The key recommendation from this chapter is to create a guiding curriculum document for the B.Ed. program’s ePortfolio. This guiding document contains the framework, template, examples, and resources for the ePortfolio process.
The next chapter, ‘Integrating ePortfolios Across Teacher Credential Programs: A Self-Study,’ also focuses on the use of ePortfolios at the program level. This study demonstrates that by implementing ePortfolio development throughout all courses, faculty found that ePortfolios were not only a place for demonstrating professional knowledge and experience but also a communication tool for students and families.
The chapter, ‘An Artifact of Learning We Could Be Proud of: Guidelines and Insights on Implementing ePortfolios in Teacher Education,’ provides lessons learned and guidance for implementing ePortfolios at the program level. The findings showed that teacher candidates appreciated how the ePortfolio 1) was practical and relevant, especially for job interviews and their future careers; 2) advanced their technological skills; 3) allowed for creativity, autonomy, and reflection; 4) modelled an effective teaching and assessment strategy; and 5) was an engaging task.
The programmatic focus continues with the the chapter on ‘Developing MyEPortfolio to enhance Pre-Service Teachers’ Teaching Practice Documentation in Higher Education in South Africa.’ The chapter synthesised scholarly literature on ePortfolios in teacher education, focusing on their role in fostering professional growth, reflective practice, and pedagogical development. Building on this foundation, a design-based research approach was used to iteratively design, develop, and refine a custom digital ePortfolio platform, MyEPortfolio, alongside a supporting implementation guide.
‘From Hard Copy to Digital and Back: Pedagogical Rituals, Resistance, and the Reconfiguration of Teaching Practice Files in a University of Technology’ describes the challenges of using an ePortfolio at a programmatic level and the rationale for returning to a hard copy approach after the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter examines how digital ePortfolios momentarily reconfigured notions of evidence, professionalism, and equity in teacher education. The post-pandemic reversion to hard-copy formats is analysed as a symbolic reclamation of institutional comfort zones, revealing tensions between innovation and tradition, efficiency and equity, disruption, and preservation.
The chapter ‘A framework for developing ePortfolios to enhance teacher training beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and opportunities’ consists of a systematic review of the ePortfolio literature resulting in a conceptual framework. The author promotes learner collaboration during ePortfolio preparation exercises and emphasizes the adoption of community of practice and community of inquiry frameworks together with principles of constructivism for effective ePortfolio development.
In terms of a course focus, the chapter ‘Leveraging ePortfolios as personalised websites: Exploring final-year pre-service science teachers’ demonstration of pedagogical knowledge and teaching skills’ explores how the use of ePortfolios, designed as personalised websites, enabled final-year pre-service science teachers to demonstrate pedagogical knowledge, teaching skills, and teacher competencies. Grounded in Identity Theory, this chapter describes how personalized websites served as interactive platforms for pre-service science teachers to develop, showcase, and reflect on lesson presentations, instructional media, and assessments that are characteristic of their self-concept as future educators.
This course focus continues with the chapter ‘Building Digital Resilience Through ePortfolios in Mathematics Teacher Education.’ This chapter explores how ePortfolios reconceptualised in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, support the development of digital resilience and deepen conceptual understanding among pre-service mathematics teachers (PSTs) within hybrid learning environments.
The final chapter in this section on teacher education is ‘Teaching Practice Without Boundaries: ePortfolios as an Innovative Digital Solution to Assess Professional Development and Teaching Practice.’ This chapter examines how ePortfolios can be used as an innovative digital solution to assess students’ teaching practice, thereby eradicating classroom boundaries for assessment.
