And how to use it as a tool for reflection & growth

A professional portfolio provides an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of knowledge, skills and understandings critical for success in your field. When employed as a tool for reflective practice, the portfolio enables you to make sense out of a myriad of experiences, and bring into focus a clear picture of yourself as a growing, changing, maturing professional. Properly used, it can also become a highly meaningful and effective way to demonstrate to others your major activities and accomplishments.

A digital portfolio is more than an electronic collection of course projects, assignments and other professional memorabilia. A thoughtfully crafted portfolio is an organized and articulate documentation of your professional development and competency. Digital documents included, also referred to as artifacts, provide tangible evidence of a wide range of experiences and ideas that you have accumulated as a growing professional.

In documenting your progress toward greater competency, you will actually be developing two portfolios: a working portfolio and a presentation portfolio. A working portfolio includes a general collection of products and exhibits created as part of your coursework in this program, as well as other appropriate items. The primary purpose of the working portfolio is to serve as a framework for self-assessment and goal setting. As you develop your presentation portfolio, you select samples from the working portfolio which best reflect the most important dimensions of your competence as a professional in the field of distance education.

Since the working portfolio is a comprehensive collection of various samples of your work to date, it will be larger and more complete than your presentation portfolio. It contains unabridged versions of all the documentation you have selected to represent your professional growth thus far in this program of study. When selecting items to include in your presentation portfolio, bear in mind that less is often more. The presentation portfolio will nee to be selective and streamlined because the audiences that assess your competence are unlikely to review every item you might have initially included in the working document. Consider the working portfolio as a draft, or work in progress, while the presentation piece is a more discriminating compendium of your best work.

The material you choose to include in your final opus should also include a rationale statement explaining why these particular items were selected among the many. Discussing the importance and relevance of the document enables the reviewer to understand the context of your work and what you intend for the documents to convey about yourself. One thing that both versions of your portfolio have in common is their need for a well established organizational system and an orderly sequence of artifacts presented.

An artifact is tangible evidence of knowledge that is gained, skills that are mastered, values that are clarified, as well as dispositions and attitudes that re characteristics of your professional self. While artifacts may not conclusively prove the attainment of all of these aspects, they can provide some reasonably convincing indication of achieved competence, as manifested in this compendium you have assembled. At first, many artifacts will be aggregated. Later, certain items from the working version will be culled, and more selective material will find its way into the presentation version. These latter exhibits are those that represent your very best work, as a student at an advanced level of study, and as an aspiring or maturing professional in the field of distance education.

Ask yourself: would I be proud to have a prospective employer or my current peer group see this? Is this an adequate example of what I am capable of doing, now and in the future? Does this represent what I stand for as an educator, trainer, administrator or other professional in this field? If not, what can I do to revise or refine this portfolio so that it truly represents my best efforts? Information contained in the portfolio will be of interest to individuals who will be assessing your performance and accountability. While a degree candidate, your portfolio will be reviewed by your faculty, and perhaps others in the university. It also is an excellent way to introduce yourself to colleagues with who you might be collaborating, and it certainly should be useful as part of your overall presentation to future employers.

You should find, as you proceed with this task, that you will gain a clearer picture of yourself as an emerging professional, as it provides a record of quantitative and qualitative growth over time in your selected goal areas and standards of good practice. You will have in hand a trail of evidence of your progress at different stages of development. This should give you a gratifying sense of accomplishment and confidence in your professional abilities as you advance in your career.

Several worthwhile books, journal articles and websites on creating professional portfolios are available. One of these, How To Develop a Professional Portfolio, by Campell, Cignetti, Melenyzer, Nettles and Wyman (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2^nd ed., 2001), though primarily for teachers, is especially useful for anyone in education related fields.

M. Beaudoin/ 2002