Developing Teacher Education Performance Assessment through Teaching E-portfolios and Pre-service/In-service EFL Teachers’ Self-reflection

Abstract

A portfolio is a document describing skills, experience, interests or knowledge of an individual. Recently, the conventional paper-based portfolio has been no longer able to keep pace and therefore, some researchers have suggested e-portfolios overcome this weakness. It is rare to find research on e-portfolio for managing certification of professional competence. Considering that developing an Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) teaching e-portfolio helps teachers to become more reflective in their teaching, the present study tried to merge this issue by exploring the effects of developing edTPA teaching e-portfolios on pre-service and in-service teachers’ self-reflection in a teacher preparation program in the Iranian EFL context. The researchers employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach. A self-reflection survey was administered to 100 EFL pre�service and in-service teachers. The participants developed edTPA teaching portfolios with three specific types of tasks (planning, instruction, and assessment) in their classrooms. After the teaching classroom, a self-reflection survey was administered as a posttest. Then six of the participants were surveyed using a follow-up interview. The results of the study showed that there was a significant improvement in the EFL teachers’ self-reflection in both groups through developing three types of edTPA and underlying five factors of reflection in their teaching. Research on edTPA as a tool measures teacher readiness and reflection. Further research efforts should focus on edTPA performance, teacher evaluation and student performance to add to the professional discourse on teacher preparation, teacher quality, and policy making.