Ready? Action! Building a portfolio of evidence in teacher education

The Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) was convened in 2014 and was asked to recommend how initial teacher education in Australia might be reformed to better prepare teachers for teaching (TEMAG, 2014, p. v). The subsequent report, Action now: Classroom ready teachers (TEMAG, 2014) outlined some clear expectations for teacher education and accreditation in the coming years. Of particular interest to this audience was the key direction that pre-service teachers should be required to develop a ‘portfolio of evidence’ during their initial teacher education program in order to demonstrate that they have reached ‘classroom readiness’ by the time they graduate. This, according to the report, would confirm their eligibility for provisional registration and then they would be required to add to this portfolio as a beginning teacher in order to achieve full registration as a teacher. This short paper reflects on the status of portfolios in teacher education and then examines the recommendations from the TEMAG report that relate to the portfolio of evidence. In particular, Recommendations 26 (a national assessment framework linked to the portfolio), 27 (connections with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2014)) and 28 (portfolio requirements during practicum) have significant implications for teacher education programs while Recommendation 33 (portfolio requirements for provisional teachers working towards full registration) will impact on induction in to the profession and ongoing professional development of teachers. While the TEMAG report acknowledged that there are examples of excellence in Australian teacher education, it maintained that this innovation has been sporadic and therefore all teacher education providers will need to review their practice in accordance with the report recommendations. In the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania, we are examining all of our programs in line with the TEMAG report and consequently our implementation of ePortfolios across the teacher education courses. While we currently have some examples of innovative ePortfolio use, we don’t yet have a clear and systemic implementation approach and therefore need to rethink how we can best enact the portfolio requirements emerging from the report. This paper, therefore, outlines the challenges that we face and describes the strategies we are considering in order to address the TEMAG recommendations.