Introduction
This page has been created to offer an overview of usign the Mahara ePortfolio program to associate pages to the BC ministry of education standards for teacher certification. Articles related to the use of the ePortfolio in the University of Victoria teacher education program have been attached along with a summary of the BC teacher standards as tags to be used to label pages that show evidence related to these standards.

Purpose

The intent of an ePortfolio is to enable a student to reflect on their learning as they build their professional identity.  The ePortfolio enables a meta-learning process for the user by allowing them to make meaningful connections across different learning experiences. The diagram below shows a model of how the Mahara ePortfoio works.  Key idea is to collect artefacts that can then be added to pages to show how evidence of you learning as a teacher.

Rationale

In professional programs the ePortfolio is particular good at allowing students to make connections between courses and between field experiences and course content. The web-based format of an ePortfolio means that web-pages with supporting information and extension ideas can be linked to as well, creating a personal hub to current and updating concepts shared through the ePortfolio system.  In addition, the ePortfolio encourages users to make connections between experiences prior to entering a program and their forming learning in a program.  Finally, the ePortoflio can also be used to address certification standards/competencies that allow students to enter into a profession.  In this role the ePortfolio is particularly useful in allowing a student to interview for prospective jobs in their chosen career, as well as applying for interviews by sending to prospective employers customized insights on their achievements, skills and knowledge.

The BC ministry of education has eight broad based standards. These standards are listed below under italics sub-headings as suggested tags:

• Care and Commitment
  1. Educators value and care for all students and act in their best interests.
• Ethical Understanding
  2. Educators are role models who act ethically and honestly.
• Student Growth and Development
  3. Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.
• Partnerships family and communities
  4. Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.
•  Effective practices in
  • Classroom management,
  • Planning,
  • Instruction,
  • Assessment & reporting
  5. Educators implement effective practices in areas of classroom management, planning, instruction, assessment, evaluation, and reporting.
• Knowledge and Understanding
  6. Educators have a broad knowledge base and understand the subject areas they teach.
• Career-long learning
  7. Educators engage in career-long learning.
• Professional Contributions
  8. Educators contribute to the profession.

As a useful guide when creating an ePortfolio page you should try to address, where appropriate, the following questions to help a reader appreciate the artifact evidence being presenting.

• What is the situation (context) of the artifacts on this page?
• What were the task(s) done by the teacher?
• What actions took place by the students? How does the evidence on the page connect to these actions?
• What was the response of the students/people involved?
• Reflecting on the artifacts, what have you learned from this experience?

Attached are two journal articles published in 2010 and 2012 that highlights the development of ePortoflios at UVic.  Also attached is an overview of UVic competencies used form 2006 - 2012 that were created from a thematic analysis of teacher standards from other provinces and countries.

Hopper, T., & Sanford, K. (2010). Program-wide E-portfolios: Creating new spaces for an “inside-out” approach to teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, Special Online Edition. Retrieved from http://www.teqjournal.org/hopper.html

Hopper, T. F., Sanford, K., & Bonsor-Kurki, S. (2012). Stitching Together a Teacher’s Body of Knowledge: Frankie N Stein’s ePortfolio. eLearning and Digital Media, 9(1), 42–55. Retrieved from http://www.wwwords.co.uk/rss/abstract.asp?j=elea&aid=4883