The duality of the teaching portfolio: A tool for showcasing teacher achievement or self-assessment?

Abstract

Assembling a teaching portfolio is an integral part of a teacher’s own learning improvement and career progression. Specifically, a portfolio can both provide an important means of self-reflection for personal development and showcase teaching experience and competency for career advancement. However, portfolios written for these two contrasting aims can be inherently contradictory by design, and may therefore differ considerably in their content. In this project, we assess to what extent this discord in portfolio aims manifests in the content of two portfolios used to apply for a lecturer position in Lund University (LU). Since both portfolios were written for the same purpose, our hypothesis was that their narrative would be very similar. To analyse the two portfolios, we used deductive coding and text mining. Specifically, we used the concept of an existing dichotomy between portfolios (formative/developmental vs. summative/evaluative) in order to create a theory-based evaluation criteria. We found that the two portfolios are very different in writing style and focus, which was exemplified by different content of their word clouds. Based on our criteria, but contrary to our hypothesis, these two portfolios fall into opposing portfolio categories. Thus, the context in which a portfolio is constructed does not necessarily result in the same type of portfolio. Nevertheless, we believe that both portfolios convince the reader that their author would be a suitable candidate for a lecturer position. For us as early career teachers, we conclude that it does not seem to matter how the portfolio is written, if it conveys teaching ability, enthusiasm, and the willingness to learn and improve.