This paper explains how the practice of developing an ePortfolio (eP) within a traditional teacher education program offers potential insights into how to create a self-renewing process. Adopting a recursive approach to examine the eP practice, three intersecting and repeating phases of actions have been identified that reflect the evolution of the five year project: (1) Technological; (2) Pedagogical; and (3) Formalizing. Finally, in line with reviews on eP development, three evolving themes have been noted in current reflections about the eP practice: (1) from resistance to awareness in the use of technology; (2) staff support above and beyond; and (3) shifting attitude to eP. The paper will conclude with how preservice teachers (PT) can take ownership for their learning as they take on the professional role of defining themselves as teachers.

Citation: Hopper, T. & Sanford, K. (2010). Starting a program-wide ePortfolio practice in teacher education: Resistance, support and renewal. Teacher Education Quarterly, Special Online Edition. Retrieved from http://teqjournal.org/hopper.html

In this paper we report on research into how an ePortfolio (eP) process can address the critique that teacher education programs offer fragmented course experiences and too often focus on narrow instrumentalist approaches emphasizing the “how to” and the “what works” .We believe that an eP process can create a complex and self-renewing system that grows from both individual and programmatic assessment of student learning. Using the eP entries of forty-five elementary pre-service teachers and interviews with eight graduating pre-service teachers, we have crafted five ethnographic fictions (Rinehart, 1998). These narratives offer an insight on the lived experience of being a pre-service teacher in a teacher education program that uses an ePortfolio practice. Using a complexity theoretical lens (Davis & Sumara, 2006; Mason, 2008) we show how the ePortfolio process creates the conditions that enables pre-service teachers to communicate reflective thinking about teaching, develop an understanding of learning and learners in emergent ways, and enables a personal and collective sense of forming teacher identity from course and practical experiences.

Citation: Hopper, T., Sanford, K., & Bonsor-Kurki, S. (2012). Stitching Together a Teacher’s Body of Knowledge: Frankie N. Stein's ePortfolio. E-Learning and Digital, 9(1), 29–42.

In this study we review and compare three electronic portfolios being used in a variety of contexts using a web-based interface. The three are e-portfolio (local program built from ground up), i-portfolio (institutionally developed for all university programs), and Mahara (open-source program developed by New Zealand government), located in university professional programs in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia respectively. This study brings to light commonalities and distinctions that emerge from three case studies drawn from interviews with three academic administrators responsible for leading the portfolio initiative at each institution. Interview questions focused on platform selection, pedagogic design and use, and the self-identified forces or events that influenced the electronic portfolio’s development.

Citation: Gerrity, S, Hopper, TF, Sanford, K. (2013). Case Studies on Three Iterations of E-Portfolios: Exploring Complexity in Teacher Education in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In The Emperor’s New Clothes? Issues and alternatives in uses of the portfolio in teacher education programs (pp. 197–214). New York: Peter Lang.

Traditional assessment is based on a summative process of judging and ranking (often normative) that is hierarchical and competitive. In recent years, models that challenge traditional summative evaluation have been proposed that focus on continuous formative assessment (Earl, 2003; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Stiggins, 2002). This represents a fundamental paradigm shift in assessment situating learners as co-constructors of assessment information from multiple sources of evidence over an array of learning experiences, negotiated with teachers and peers to create a personal story of learning. Assessment needs to be focused on enabling, rather than disabling, student learning. We advance these ideas of ‘enabling assessment’ by presenting two case studies centred around the use of electronic Portfolios (dynamic websites that interface with a database of student program-related experiences stored as artifacts) in education.Both cases involved integral use of an ePortfolio as both pedagogical and assessment tools that enabled the instructors to fundamentally shift the assessment paradigm of the course.

Citation: Sanford, K., Hopper, T. F., & Fisher, P. (2013). Changing paradigms: Embracing contemporary learning theories through ePortfolio. In The Emperor’s New Clothes? Issues and alternatives in uses of the portfolio in teacher education programs (pp. 72–90). New York: Peter Lang.

The purpose of this study is to explore the implementation of an electronic-portfolio (eP) within three professional programs (Education, Nursing, and Social Work) in one university. Working with a team of researchers from across the professional programs case studies of each program's eP innovation has been developed. Data sources include: 1) meetings and interviews with stakeholders within programs and contracted technology support; 2) ongoing reviews of eP platforms through participant observation and user feedback surveys; and 3) interviews with instructors and two students from each course in each program as the eP process is implemented. Critical for eP success is instructors developing activities and assignments that enable student choice, authentic learning tasks and the use of rich media. Initial findings indicates the capacity of eP to enable students to be able to integrate, understand and apply the learning that they gain throughout the program as a whole through the interaction of personal, professional and contextual knowledge forms.

Nursing education is new to incorporating ePortfolios (eP) into teaching practice. Using existing literature reviews and empirical studies we mapped the current landscape of eP use in nursing education. Our literature review illustrates that although the shift to the electronic form of portfolio is a relatively new trend in nursing education, ePs: contribute to building learners’ competence; enable reflection on experiential learning to develop critical thinking; offer a valuable tool for assessment and evaluation; and, promote professional and career development. However, challenges exist alongside these benefits, for example, issues with technology including user-friendliness, technology support, data storage, privacy, time and effort consumption, assessment validity, and staff and student buy-in. Competency-building, metacognition, reflection on action, and technology-based learning are some of the distinguishing frameworks that guide the use of eP in teaching nursing or research on the use of ePs in nursing education.

This paper will highlight the emerging pedagogical practice in teacher education utilizing a digital electronic-portfolio (DeP). We have viewed our current practice in the use of ePortfolios as more than “electronic” (i.e., more than simply a collection of digital artifacts compiled by the user). We see “digital” as signifying access to the ever-growing resource of digital artifacts (i.e. websites, videos, papers, blogs, cloud-based apps) related to a teacher’s professional practice. The “digital” signifies the connecting, curating and re-presenting of this “digital” knowledge through an eP hub. The focus of this paper is to explain how 35 students in their first professional term in a four-year bachelor of education course learned to reflect on their experiences in courses, in the program and across their lives as they formed their teaching identity.