Creating a Portfolio

Decide

One of the first steps in designing your portfolio is determining which web design platform you want to use. Then, you can build a wireframe (website structure, without the content) as an example of how your site might be organized. By setting up the organizational structure, you will be ready to plug in belief statements and artifacts as you select them.

Weebly

Pros:

Considered the most user-friendly, with intuitive drag-and-drop design.

Cons:

Fewer templates to choose from.
Only minimal customization available.

See this website as a Weebly site.

Wix

Pros:

Very user-friendly, with an "AI" setup tool.
Hundreds of templates to choose from.
More options for customization.

Cons:

Ads on published site are more visible than others.
Difficult to change theme once you've started designing.

Google Sites

Pros:

Easy integration with Google Drive for streamlined account and file management.
Lots of customization possible, especially if you have web design experience.
No ads - free with UVA Google account

Cons:

Items inserted from Google Drive must be shared publicly to display correctly.

Design

Build a Working Portfolio

The best way to build an effective presentation portfolio is to systematically collect and organize lesson plans, student samples, reflections, and other professional products in an ongoing manner. These unabridged artifacts will later be narrowed down to the pieces that best illustrate your professional identity.

Select Artifacts

Lesson Plans
Rubrics
Reflections
Student work
Responses from student survey feedback
Behavior intervention plans
Pictures of bulletin boards
Curriculum plans
Floor plans
Professional readings list
Student contracts

portfolio_artifact_possibilities.pdf

Develop

Write Annotations/Rationale
What?---What is the experience reflected in the artifact? What is the artifact?
So what?---What does this work say about your growing competence?
Now what?---What did you learn from this experience? What will you do differently in the future? How will the skills you’ve gained transfer to new experiences?

Build Your Site

Begin to plug in your content to your wireframe. As things come together, note what else you could add to make each page more engaging. For example, you might realize you want a picture of your classroom for the homepage, or pictures of student work samples. Make sure to leave enough time to gather these additional artifacts.

Evaluate

Make sure you've tested every page of your portfolio as a viewer. Try out different web browsers as well as your phone.

Ask a peer to review your site as if they were an employer, and then give you specific feedback.

Checklist for Professional Portfolios (TOTAL OF 15 POINTS):

2 points: Introduction
2 points: Classroom Community
2 points: Family and Community Engagement
2 points: Literacy
2 points: Mathematics
2 points: Science/Social Studies
1 point: Addressing differentiation
1 point: Addressing technology integration
1 point: Complete, professional, compelling, and ready to be sent to an administrator

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