Your ePortfolio is the capstone experience of your teacher education program at UNLV. Like the capstone of a building or the keystone of an arch, a capstone experience in education brings together and solidifies all the skills and knowledge you have developed over the last several years. A capstone experience not only brings closure to your undergraduate career but launches you into the next phase of your professional career. At UNLV, your e-portfolio is primarily a tool for your own learning and reflection as you complete your program at UNLV. Putting it together will help you to review all the good work you have done in your teacher education program and to appreciate how much you have learned and grown.
You will be introduced to the ePortfolio project when you enter our teacher education program. You will begin creating your ePortfolio during Practicum 2. Your progress will be checked along the way by site facilitators. At the end of your internship, you will present parts of your portfolio to your peers, your mentor teacher, site facilitator, and UNLV faculty. Your portfolio will be evaluated by a rubric and the grade will be part of the grade you receive for EDSC481A (Student Teaching).
The ePortfolio is designed to help you demonstrate how well you meet the Interstate Teacher and Assessment Support Consortium (INTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards.
Like many of today’s students and teachers, university faculty are also accountable for students’ learning and must show that our graduates can meet national standards. Your ePortfolio will help our faculty show accrediting agencies what our students know and can do.
At some point, you may find that this ePortfolio proves helpful for employment purposes. You may, for example, add your resume or a video of your classroom or other artifacts that might be of interest to a potential employer. You also might choose to remove materials that you might not wish to share. At the very least, creating this ePortfolio now should help you to address a critical step in your search for a teaching position - taking stock of your professional growth, beliefs, and goals.
Candidates can choose Google Sites, Wix, Weebly or similar website builders to create their web-based portfolios.
Select a log-in/account name for your site that reflects you academically and professionally. This account should contain elements of your name so that viewers can easily identify you as the source of information ( e.g. javier.santos; jsantos12, j.santos, etc.)
There are many free resources on the Web to help you with web site construction.
For those choosing Google Sites (through Rebelmail or Gmail), here are basic directions with Steps for Creating a Portfolio Web Site with Google Sites. For additional help in developing your site, see Google Sites Help Center.
After creating your initial ePortfolio web site, please complete the 21cPortfolio Information Survey.
The first page of your ePortfolio will consist of an introduction. This should include a picture and an "About Me" statement that includes professional information about yourself such as your K-16 educational experiences.Your introduction orients the reader to your portfolio and creates a clear picture of who you are as a teacher and a learner. Five hundred words is an expected minimum to cover the essentials. The introduction should identify a content focus or theme for your portfolio. This theme should reflect the steps you have taken on your learning and teaching journey. Please identify specific goals you have for pursuing teaching as a career.
Possible themes include but are not limited to:
The Classroom as Community
Teaching in the Information Age
Teaching in a diverse world
Teaching through inquiry
Connecting assessment and learning objectives
21st Century teaching and learning
This theme should lead into your philosophy of teaching, an essay you began writing in EDU202 and have continued to refine as you moved through the secondary education program. Include in your introduction a brief overview of the artifacts in your portfolio and how these illustrate the theme you have chosen. Your philosophical statement will synthesize your conceptualization of effective teaching, especially your content area of interest within in the context of current practice. Although your introduction is expressed in first person, the statement is academic in content and must include pedagogical language. It should also reflect what you have gained through observation and teaching in classrooms and participation in UNLV courses. This statement will be used to evaluate your understanding of and competence in (INTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards 9 and 10.
Upload and link at least five (5) artifacts to your ePortfolio. Briefly explain how these artifacts are tied to specific IINTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards and why you have chosen each of the artifacts. You may find it advantageous to review this chart to choose appropriate artifacts from courses you have completed. You may choose to add or delete artifacts as you construct your ePortfolio. These artifacts and their relationship to the (INTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards enable you to make connections between your teaching practices and your professional growth.
After completing your introduction and attaching your artifacts, you will reflect on the impact of your experiences in the teacher education program including your ePortfolio and how these contributed to your professional growth. This final reflection will be incorporated into your 'Conclusion' page in your ePortfolio. Topics for discussion in your conclusion could include but are not limited to:
The relationship of courses completed during the program to the experiences in the field,
How creating the ePortfolio helped you learn about yourself as a learner and teacher,
The ways assignments throughout the program helped promote your development as an effective teacher, and
Highlight the strengths you developed in relation to the outcomes of the Secondary Education program.
At the end of your internship and after presenting your Secondary ePortfolio, submit your feedback on this brief ePortfolio Development Survey
Secondary Program sample sites created by former students.
Sample - Courtney Lichtenwalner
Hint: If you have questions about editing and formatting on your site, search for a web resource or YouTube video on the topic!