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Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 1178e1185

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Teaching and Teacher Education

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Repertoires of practice: Re-framing teaching portfolios

Deborah P. Berrill*, Emily AddisonSchool of Education, Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON, Canada K9H 4Z4

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 22 July 2009Received in revised form2 January 2010Accepted 10 February 2010

Keywords:Teaching portfolioPre-service teacher educationRepertoires of practiceReflectionPortfolio purposes

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 705 748 1011x617E-mail address: dberrill@trentu.a (D.P. Berrill).

0742-051X/$ e see front matter � 2010 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.02.005

a b s t r a c t

Teaching portfolios have been widely used in pre-service teacher education programs for approximatelytwo decades and often constitute exit requirements and/or function as a requirement for entry to theteaching profession. Yet much has been written about teacher candidate confusion as to whether theportfolio's purpose is to document their learning and their identity formation as teachers or to serve asevidence of their teaching competence. This paper applies a sociocultural historical lens to this issue,exploring the possible role of teaching portfolios as an effective tool both for the negotiation of identityand for the demonstration of teaching competence. Through examining the perceptions of teachers whoare in their first five years of teaching, we seek to re-frame the above issues in relation to repertoires ofpractice, a sociocultural historical phrase referring to shared competencies within a given community.We conclude that this re-framing enables novice teachers to understand competencies as the repertoiresof the teaching profession and that they can enact these repertoires, or competencies, through a range ofdifferent practices. Through this re-framing, the purposes of the teaching portfolio may be moreapparent and less contradictory.

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Upon first introduction, the novice may perceive the teachingportfolio to be a benign collection of artifacts, a repository whereone periodically inserts content that appears important to one'steaching e a scrapbook of sorts. Yet, the purpose of the teachingportfolio becomes increasingly muddied as pre-service teachercandidates become more involved in creating and using theirteaching portfolios: is the portfolio a compendium of materials thatspeaks to the candidate's learning and identity construction or is ita documentation of the candidate's competence e a gatekeeper forprogram exit and/or entry into the profession? The situation is notso different for classroom teachers who are required to createteaching portfolios for appraisal or additional credentialingpurposes in that they too are left questioning whether the portfoliois a mechanism for reflection and improvement of teaching practiceor evidence of teaching expertise.

Although there can be multiple purposes for portfolios, theresearch literature speaks to two main frameworks associated witheducational portfolios e constructivist learning portfolios andpositivist assessment portfolios. In a learning portfolio, self-reflection is a critical part of the process of creating the portfolio,the learner has a significant control of what is included and ofevaluation, and the portfolio emphasizes growth and learning. Incontrast, assessment portfolios emphasize evidence of

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achievement of externally imposed outcomes and in the case ofteaching portfolios these outcomes are evidence of teachingcompetencies. A number of scholars contend that the purpose ofa portfolio significantly influences the type of entries one includes;thus, having clarity of purpose is very important, and particularly sofor novice teachers.

Teaching portfolios have increasingly moved to include bothpurposes. This has become problematic for many teacher candi-dates: Should they be documenting learning and professionalidentity formation or providing evidence of teaching competence?When candidates perceive that demonstration of imposedcompetencies is the most important factor for program completionor entry to the profession, they often lose sight of deeper issuesrelated to formation of their teaching identities and of ways thatthey enact their beliefs through their teaching practices.

This paper applies a sociocultural historical lens to examine howthis problem of contradictory purposes can be ameliorated.Through examining the perceptions of teachers who are in theirfirst five years of teaching, we seek to show how the teachingportfolio can be an effective tool for re-framing teaching compe-tencies as teaching repertoires, providing a clearer understandingfor teacher candidates of how teaching repertoires become part ofone's teaching identity.

The rationale for teaching portfolios. Teaching portfolios werefirst used in the 1980s, prompted in part by the 1986 release in theUnited States of A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century andthe creation of the National Board Certification process whereby

D.P. Berrill, E. Addison / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 1178e1185 1179

classroom teachers could seek master teacher recognition. In theearly 1990s, two works were promoted anew as a key to increaseimprovement of teaching practice and teacher professionalismthrough reflection: Dewey's (1933) How we think: A restatement ofthe relation of reflective thinking to the educative process and Schön's(1983) The Reflective Practitioner. In themid-1990s, therewas strongadvocacy for the development of portfolios in teacher educationwith the portfolio seen both as supporting the development ofa professional habit of reflection and as a concrete representation ofthe process of reflection (Borko, Michalec, Timmons, & Siddle, 1997;Loughran & Corrigan, 1995; Lyons, 1998; Wade & Yarborough,1996). The relatively quick uptake of portfolios may have beendue in part to the ways in which portfolios were perceived asvehicles that could demonstrate the complexity of teaching andprovide authentic evidence of reflection and teacher practice.However, within a very short time period, those seeking morenuanced and authentic methods of teacher appraisal and cre-dentialing recognized the benefits offered by teaching portfolios.By 2000, teaching portfolios had “become commonplace in the U.S.in teacher education programs, in the process of granting an initialteaching license, in teacher recertification, and in National Boardcertification” (Zeichner & Wray, 2001, p. 613).

The call for acknowledgement of complexity in teaching hasbeen reiterated in recent teacher credentialing literature, particu-larly with regards to alternative teacher credentialing routes andthe need for credentialing that goes beyond test scores to includemultiple data sources (Pecheone & Chung, 2006). Thus, the initialimpetus for teaching portfolios, namely the improvement ofteaching practice and professionalism, has become subsumedunder the equally important issue of teacher credentialing. Thisshift has resulted in confusion on the part of both teacher educatorsand teacher candidates regarding how to construct portfolioentries, accompanied by the recognition that confusion of portfoliopurpose can put authors in a position of vulnerability (Burroughs,2001; Snyder, Lippincott, & Bower, 1998; Wray, 2008; vanTartwijk, van Rijswijk, Tuithof, & Driessen, 2008).

This paper reports a study of over 350 teachers in their first fiveyears of teaching who created a teaching portfolio as part of their B.Ed. program requirements. Using sociocultural historical theory,a new way of framing teaching competencies e as teachingrepertoires e is proposed. This framework may provide a lesscontested and more clearly understood relation between “compe-tencies” and identity.

1. Multiple and contradictory purposes of teaching portfolios

Since its inception, a tension has existed regarding the purpose ofthe teaching portfolio. While some identify its primary purpose aspromoting teacher reflection and growth (Farr Darling, 2001;Mansvelder-Longaroux, Beijaard, & Verloop, 2007), others perceiveportfolios as a tool for assessing teacher competencies and effec-tiveness (Burroughs, 2001; Tillema & Smith, 2007). This tension wasnoted over a decade ago (Snyder, Lippincott, & Bower, 1998) andremains problematic today (van Tartwijk et al., 2008; Tillema &Smith, 2007; Wray, 2008). Although the binary of reflection andgrowth versus assessment of externally imposed criteria seems to bethe central tension in use of teaching portfolios, research over thepast decade has identified a number of additional issues regardingboth the symbolic and physical construction of portfolios. Theseinclude: (a) conflict in purpose and audience (Borko et al., 1997;Hallman, 2007; Tillema & Smith, 2007; Wray, 2008; Zeichner &Wray, 2001); (b) lack of support in constructing portfolios (Angel,2008; Farr Darling, 2001; Wray, 2007); (c) lack of teacher owner-ship over their ownportfolios (Barrett, 2007; Berrill &Whalen, 2007;Stuart & Thurlow, 2000; Zeichner & Wray, 2001) and (d) lack of

shared appraisal criteria (Burroughs, 2001; Cochran-Smith, 2005;Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000; Tillema & Smith, 2007).

A number of scholars have put forward the convincing argu-ment that purpose “determines the type of portfolio to be created”(Wray, 2008, p. 37) and that portfolio design and the nature ofportfolio assessment “significantly influence the way candidatesthink about and reflect on their teaching” (Pecheone & Chung,2006, p. 31). In many jurisdictions, pre-service teaching portfoliosare assessed either for credentialing purposes or as a program orcourse assignment. Yet, assessment of the portfolio may be at crosspurposes with a learning portfolio for it is unclear whether thereflective entries are for teacher candidate purposes, such asimprovement of practice, or for the purpose of satisfying externalcriteria. Wray (2008) reminds us that teacher candidates may bevulnerable if they create entries related to the improvement in theirpractice (learning portfolios) when their portfolios are assessed forpurposes of demonstrating mastery. Others indicate that learningversus demonstration of mastery purposes are not necessarilycontradictory, noting that developing a portfolio for credentialingpurposes can have profound “beneficial and career-altering”(learning) impact on individuals (Pecheone & Chung, 2006, p. 31).Context, support, and feedback during portfolio construction seemto significantly impact the degree to which this is true.

Even with shared understanding regarding the purpose of theportfolio, Tillema and Smith (2007) found that the lack of explicitand shared portfolio appraisal criteria in pre-service teachereducation often results in normative and judgmental evaluationsreflecting the personal perceptions of individual assessors leadingto a wide variation in assessment both within and across insti-tutions. Like others, Tillema and Smith argue that criteria such asevidence of quality improvement or continuous developmentwould “reconcile the teacher educator's dilemma of being both anassessor and a mentor of learning” (Tillema & Smith, 2007, p. 455).From this perspective, if purposes and criteria are explicit andshared between and across teacher candidates and teachereducators, it may be possible that a portfolio could have morethan one purpose and still be an instrument for meaningfulteacher reflection on practice, the original rationale for teachingportfolios.

Issues related to multiple portfolio purposes are exacerbated bytwo additional factors: The need for support in construction of theportfolio (Angel, 2008; Farr Darling, 2001; Imhof & Picard, 2009;Wray, 2008) and the need of authors to feel ownership of theportfolio (Barrett, 2007; Berrill & Whalen, 2007; Zeichner &Wray, 2001).

2. Theoretical framework: sociocultural historical theory

Sociocultural historical theory seeks to understand learning associal participation (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003; Lave &Wenger,1991;Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 1998). Using this lens, we frame pre-service teacher education as the preparation of novices for entryinto a community of practice e that of the teaching profession. Ourperspective is informed by Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory oflegitimate peripheral participation as a lens for exploring andunderstanding the dynamic landscape of community membership,of belonging in the community. Lave and Wenger (1991) describethis as follows:

Peripherality suggests that there may be multiple, varied, more-or less-engaged and inclusive ways of being located in the fieldsof participation defined by a community. . Furthermore,legitimate peripherality is a complex notion, implicated in socialstructures involving relations of power. . [Legitimate periph-erality] can itself be a source of power or powerlessness, in

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affording or preventing articulation and interchange amongcommunities of practice. (pp. 35e36.)

Thus, we are interested in exploring the construct of teachercandidates as new members in the community of practice of theteaching profession and in their movement from a position oflegitimate peripheral participation early in their pre-serviceprograms to fuller participation by the time of entry into theprofession. Wenger (1998) sheds further light on this process in hisexploration of identity construction through participation ina community of practice. Our interest is in teacher candidates'construction of their personaleprofessional identities as membersof the teaching profession and of the role of the teaching portfolioas a tool of mediation of their identity negotiation.

Like other contemporary identity theorists, Wenger constructsidentity as fluid while also distinguishing the sociocultural framingof identity as one that acknowledges the “profound connectionbetween identity and practice” (Wenger, 1998, p. 149). He furthercharacterizes identity as negotiated experience, communitymembership, learning trajectory, a nexus of multimembership, andbelonging defined globally but experienced locally (pp. 149e150).

An identity, then, is a layering of events of participation andreification by which our experience and its social interpretationinform each other. As we encounter our effects on the world anddevelop our relations with others, these layers build upon eachtogether to produce our identity as a very complex interweavingof participative experience and reificative projections. Bringingthe two together through the negotiation of meaning, weconstruct who we are. In the same way that meaning exists in itsnegotiation, identity existse not as an object in and of itselfe butin the constant work of negotiating the self. It is in this cascadinginterplay of participation and reification that our experience of lifebecomes one of identity.. (Wenger, 1998, p. 151.)

From this perspective, teacher candidates negotiate theirprofessional identities through the meaning of their participationin the community of teaching practice. Part of the complexity ofthis particular process is that teacher candidates have already beenfull participants in schooling as students and the landscape alreadyholds a certain familiarity to them. However, as students they weremembers of a different community with very different practices ethose of the student community. As members of the community ofteacher practitioners, they must take on different repertoires,different engagement, different enterprises.

Repertoires of practice. Sociocultural theorists would argue thathaving a shared repertoire of practice is what defines a communityof practice. Wenger contends that the expected repertoires of thecommunity of practice translate into dimensions of competencewhich become dimensions of identity in that community (Wenger,1998, p. 153). Wenger explains this further, as follows:

When we come in contact with new practices, we venture intounfamiliar territory. The boundaries of our communities mani-fest as a lack of competence. . We do not quite know how toengage with others. We do not understand the subtleties of theenterprise as the community has defined it. . Our non-membership shapes our identities through our confrontationwith the unfamiliar. In sum, membership in a community ofpractice translates into an identity as a form of competence.(Wenger, 1998, p. 153.)

Teacher candidates are introduced to repertoires of the teachingprofession both through their university course work and theirschool placement experiences. According to sociocultural theory,their teaching identities are negotiated through a process ofparticipation in teaching as well as reflection on that experience

(the reification of that participation) and as such, will be constantlyrenegotiated.

The teaching portfolio as a tool for mediating identity nego-tiation. By focusing on repertoires of teaching practice, the pre-service teaching portfolio can serve as a tool of mediation andnegotiation during entry into the teaching profession, and hence asa tool of identity construction within this community of practice.Through the teaching portfolio, teacher candidates are able to reifytheir practice bymaking it visible and consciously reflecting on it inrelation to expected repertoires of the profession. The reflectivecomments expected in teaching portfolios are articulations ofidentity in practice and negotiations of the repertoires of thecommunity.

This study explores the extent to which the teaching portfolio isperceived to be helpful in constructing a professional teachingidentity. From a sociocultural historical perspective, this identityconstruction involves gaining understanding of and facility withthe repertoires, or competencies, of the professional teachingcommunity.

3. Context

This study is situated within a social constructivist paradigmwhich calls for the creation of meaning and understanding throughexamining the complexities of various voices and perspectives(Guba & Lincoln, 2005). The paper thus draws from a rich source ofparticipant voices, having solicited the perspectives of all graduatesin the past five years from a School of Education in Ontario, Canada.This population was chosen so that we could explore perceptionsafter the immediacy and intensity of recent portfolio completionhad passed and when graduates had become fuller participants inthe professional community of practice.

4. Program context

The B.Ed. program that is the site of the study is a one-yearpostgraduate program with an enrolment of approximately300e350 per year, including both elementary school and secondaryschool teacher candidates. Entrance into the program is highlycompetitive, requiring both an experience profile and an academicprofile, and with a consistent ratio of approximately nine applica-tions for every person accepted. Over the duration of the program,teacher candidates spend a minimum of 71 days in school place-ment where they are mentored and evaluated by an experiencedteacher. Teacher candidates meet with their faculty supervisors(university instructors) in practicum groups of 12e15 for 2 hweekly. While teacher candidates are on placement, facultysupervisors observe the candidates teach and in a 10-weekextended placement, the candidates return to the university eachmonth to meet with their practicum group and faculty supervisor.

5. Portfolio context

Although portfolios are not required in Ontario for credentialingpurposes, they are an integral component of this B.Ed. program andare assessed as part of the practicum course, accounting for 50% ofthe final mark in the course. There are explicit criteria anda common marking rubric for the portfolio (Appendix A). Duringthe time period of the study, the portfolio was described in theUniversity Calendar as follows:

All candidates will prepare a Professional Teaching Portfoliobased on expected teaching competencies, aligned with theOntario College of Teachers' Standards of Practice for the TeachingProfession and the Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession.

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The Professional Teaching Portfolio will be developed over thecourse of the program, incorporating material from courses andfrom practicum experiences. As well as documenting thecandidates' professional practice and the relation of researchand theory to practice, the portfolios will include the candidates'reflections on their own teaching beliefs and practices as well ason-going professional learning plans. (University Calendar,2006, pp. 87e88.)

Support and guidance inportfoliopreparation isoffered to teachercandidates through faculty supervisors, other instructors,workshops,and an online “portfolio maker” website (www.portfoliomaker.ca).That said, there is variation in the way in which faculty supervisorsinform and guide teacher candidates regarding the development oftheir portfolio and it is apparent in meetings that faculty holddiffering views regarding the purpose of the portfolio.

There are seven sections/categories that must be included in theportfolio: professional development; planning; classroommanagement; assessment and evaluation; special needs; curric-ulum areas of special interest; and extra-curricular contributions.These sections reflect different repertoires of practice e most ofwhich, we would argue, are recognizable to teachers worldwide.They were chosen as an organizer for the portfolio instead ofexisting College of Teachers standards of practice for they representthe very fundamentals of teaching and are not prone to shifting, asmay be true for politically articulated standards of practice. Inaddition to the seven required sections, candidates are encouragedto include additional sections that reflect particular values, skillsand talents not represented by the above. The candidates receivea three-ring white binder, one inch thick, with section dividers andsheet protectors and are encouraged to have pages be ‘doublesided,’ enabling two-page design considerations such as showingsamples of student work accompanied by commentary andreflections on the work.

Although some instructors begin talking about the portfolioearly in the B.Ed. program and some course assignments arestructured so that they can serve as portfolio entries, mostinstructors do not address the portfolio until much later in the year.Since the portfolio is an assignment for only one course, mostinstructors do not see themselves as having a role to play in sup-porting teacher candidates in constructing their portfolios. Hence,for many candidates, portfolio construction does not begin inearnest until just before it is due at the end of the program.

6. Methodology

Results reported in this paper draw upon a set of questions thatwere part of a larger five-year program review. The target pop-ulationwas composed of all B.Ed. graduates from the last five years,including graduates from the spring preceding late autumn datacollection of the study. Potential respondents were invited by lettervia email and through the postal system to participate in an onlinesurvey, and participants directly accessed the online surveythrough a website address. Thus, no identifying features such asemail address were included and each individual was givena randomly generated numeric code. Of the 1372 graduates fromthe B.Ed. program in the last five years, 367 (27%) participated inthe study. Statistical analysis showed this sample to be highlyrepresentative of the larger population with regards to teachingdivision (elementary or secondary school), gender, teachingsubject, and year of graduation. Analysis also showed no differencesin responses across any of the demographic populations.

The larger questionnaire for the five-year program reviewincluded graduates' perceptions of program helpfulness inpreparing them for the teaching profession. Sections included

questions on the program overall, program content, coursedelivery, the practicum, and the teaching portfolio. Three questionssolicited participants' perceptions regarding the portfolio,including both a 6-point likert-type question (strongly agree;agree; neither agree nor disagree; disagree; strongly disagree; notapplicable) and open-ended items. The questions were as follows:

1. To what degree do you agree/disagree with the followingstatements: The professional portfolio (the process or product)helped me.a. construct my identity as a teacher.b. get a job.c. in teacher performance appraisald. in career development.

2. In what ways did the portfolio categories help or constrain youin constructing your identity as a teacher? (Some categoriesinclude professional development, planning, classroommanagement, assessment and evaluation, special needs,curriculum areas of special interest, co-curricular contribu-tions.) Please elaborate.

3. Any other comments on the professional teaching portfoliothat could be helpful for us. Please elaborate.

Participants also had other opportunities to write about theteaching portfolio when responding to open-ended questions, suchas asking participants to identify what they felt were the particularstrengths of the program, what they would like to see more of, andwhat they would like to see less of. Consistent with socioculturalconstructivism, the questionnaire purposefully did not define theterm identity, but rather allowed participants to define identitythemselves through the language they used and the examples theyincluded. During coding, responses with common language useabout the construct of ‘identity’ were clumped, and showeda strongly shared construction of the concept.

Short answer responses were analyzed using a grounded andcontext-specific approach. Following Creswell's (2005) principle ofconstant comparative data analysis, we worked inductively, “fromspecific to broad data analysis 'grounding' the categories in thedata” (p. 406), and refined themes by returning to data repeatedly.To prevent being influenced by the results of the quantitative data,the short answer responses were analyzed prior to examining theclose-ended data. The researchers and a research assistant inde-pendently read all responses, identifying broad themes as well asspecific categories within the themes. After the initial coding wascompleted, the categories were discussed until consensus wasreached regarding both the themes and categories. Using the newthemes and categories, researchers then independently re-codedthe responses to ensure consensus.

The close-ended question was examined using descriptivestatistics (i.e., frequencies and comparisons of variables) andindependent t-tests were conducted to identify whether thereweresignificant differences. Close-ended and short answer findingswere then compared to identify points of resonation, reflecting themixed-method nature of the data (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007).

7. Results and discussion

Results are reported using the final synthesis between thequantitative and the qualitative data. It is important to rememberthat these quotations are from teachers who graduated from theirB.Ed. program between one and five years prior to this survey.

No differences across groups. We entered this study notknowing if there might be differences across subgroups in responseto creating a portfolio and, thus, to our questions. For instance,teacher educators often write about perceived cultural differences

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between people planning to teach elementary school and thoseplanning to teach secondary school. Similarly, females are oftenconstructed differently from males regarding their engagementwith writing or with assembling what can be perceived asa ‘scrapbook’ type of compendium. And, likewise, secondary schoolscience teacher candidates are often constructed differently thanthose in the arts and humanities.

Analysis across gender, program division, and teaching arearesulted in no significant difference. For instance, Fig. 1 highlightsthe striking consistency in response regarding portfolio helpfulnessin identity construction.

Approximately 56% of survey participants agreed or stronglyagreed that the portfolio process or product helped them constructtheir identity as a teacher; approximately 24% neither agreed nordisagreed; and approximately 20% disagreed or strongly disagreed.These consistencies across all groups give the data strong reliability.

The portfolio as an effective tool in the construction of teacheridentity. The majority of respondents found the portfolio to bea powerful tool in supporting the construction of their teacheridentity. This included repeated comments such as how portfoliossupported the development of philosophies of teaching, the artic-ulation of beliefs, and the making visible and defining personalstrengths and weaknesses.

I think all [sections of the portfolio] were helpful. [.]If I had topick, I'd say “special interest” and “special needs” are areas thatget a lot of attention so, I really focused on building them up.With the demands of diverse learners and interest in teacheridentity, these areas highlight my dedication to special needsand social justice (as my area of special interest). These areashave helped me construct my teacher identity.

It forced me to put my thoughts and feelings on paper, thusmaking it easy to speak to each of my belief categories. I believethat this will be a great value in an interview setting when I willneed to keepmy answers quick and concise. It providedmewitha great deal of time for reflection on my teaching experiencesand beliefs.

I think the categories were very helpful in helping me identifydifferent aspects of educational practice, different strategies foreach, and evaluation and articulation of my own strategies foreach topic. It also helped me identify my areas of weakness, myeducational needs, and develop strategies for improvement.

That said, the quantitative results show that approximately one-fifth of teacher candidates disagreed or strongly disagreed that

Fig. 1. Comparison of graduates' responses regarding their agreement with the statement thincludes both strongly agree and agree responses. 2. Neither includes neither agree nor dis

the portfolio was helpful in constructing their identity as a teacher.The qualitative responses gave us deeper understanding regardingthe complexities involved and greater insight into why somepeople felt that the portfolio was not helpful.

One of the perceived obstacles to portfolios supporting identityconstruction was the portfolio categories themselves e what wecontend are the repertoires of practice of the teaching profession.

I think the categories should have been more “suggestion” thanrequirement because my identity doesn't necessarily fit into thetiny boxes we were allowed to express ourselves in. A lot of itwas fluff and took a lot of time, but then was removed from myportfolio immediately because I would never present it in aninterview.

The portfolio was forced and the specific requirements for eachsection made me feel like I better write the “correct” responserather than how I really felt. My portfolio does not reflect who Iam as a teacher.

It didn't help me. I simply rushed to put something together thatregurgitated all that I had been told about teaching throughoutthe year. It is not an authentic assessment. there are too manyRULES on what the final product should look like . successlooks different to all of us.

Responses such as those above indicate that some candidateseither had not recognized the categories as representing therepertoires of practice and expected competencies of the teachingcommunity that are intertwined with teacher identity or else theyrecognized them as such but did not understand that they coulddemonstrate their ability to enact these repertoires in a range ofways, which would, in turn, articulate their teacher identity inpersonally meaningful ways. It is interesting that even after one tofive years of classroom practice, some respondents still did not seethis connection.

In contrast, other participants indicated that the categories werenot a problem, but rather that the format of the portfoliowas the issue.

It would be much better to provide a format, rather than justdoing an abstract sort of thing by looking at other people'sportfolios. Remindedme of the sort of thing the junior grades do(making a title page, using colours etc)..

I mostly felt that the format was constrictive. Although I likedthe portfolio, the evaluation (and rigid expected structure),limited my ability to create a portfolio that reflected my orga-nizational style or my personality.

at the professional portfolio helped construct their identity as a teacher. Note:1. Agreeagree response. 3. Disagree includes both disagree and strongly disagree responses.

D.P. Berrill, E. Addison / Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 1178e1185 1183

In addition to the study data, our lengthy experience supportingteacher candidates in portfolio construction indicates to us that formany candidates, the format of the portfolio entries as well as thecontent is perceived as reflecting their identity. In portfolio studios,issues of format continually arise with teacher candidateswondering, for instance, if they have to use colored font when, asone candidate recently put it, they do not consider themselves to be“rainbow” people. Similarly, candidates struggle with whether theyneed to use extended prose if they prefer bulleted points; or if theyhave to use graphics when they are more linear thinkers them-selves. The collaborative nature of the studios and the openness ofthose community conversations help dispel myths about theportfolios as having to adhere to a singular format. However, not allcandidates attend these studios and few course instructors attend,and they are the ones who assess the portfolios.

Other responses indicated further complexities. For some, feelingsthat the portfolio was not helpful in identity construction seem tomerge with issues regarding the lack of clarity of the purpose of theportfolio, the lack of support provided to candidates during theconstruction process, the amount of work involved in constructingthe portfolio, and the lack of valuing of the portfolio by someinstructors. The comments below reflect some of these complexities.

There should be a more thorough explanation of what theportfolio is at the start of the year and more encouragementplaced on gathering student work and photos from the start.

I was never clear on the final outcome, which resulted in somevery incohesive thinking and a decided struggle to complete.Had I been clear from the outset, I would have kept betterrecords..

These comments drew our attention to the fact that in con-structing a teaching portfolio, candidates are being asked tocomplete two challenging tasks: the development and articulationof beliefs on a wide range of new repertoires; and the creation offormal reflections, a process that many teacher candidates have nothave previously experienced. Each of these tasks can be difficultenough to create discomfort and frustration for some individuals.As respondents explained:

Wewerenot yet teachers butwewere expected tohave thiswealthof experience that shaped us as educators. Some of it seemedsuperficial. However, some of the categories helped to focus you onwhat was important as a beginning teacher, [such as] a positiveclassroom environment and classroom management techniques.

Some of the categories such as professional development werepractical in being laid out for me, but the rest I found hard to putdown on paper at this point because I did not yet fully under-stand who I am as a teacher because we had up until thenalways been partnered with an experienced teacher. You reallyknow great things to write about yourself mostly once you havetruly taught on your own and knowwhat you did or didn't do toget yourself ready for that experience or how you handled it.

Until a teacher has had a year or two in the profession, I think itis very difficult to complete the portfolio in a way that repre-sents you as a teacher.

One aspect that stood out was the emotionally vested nature ofsome of the negative responses with respondents using languagesuch as “ridiculous,” “waste of time,” “the assessment is a joke,” and“this was a nearly futile exercise.” Although this perception rep-resented a limited number of respondents, we feel that it isimportant to recognize the deeply felt emotion as a call fornecessary change if we truly wish to support all teacher candidatesin creating rich and complex portraits of themselves as teachers.

While the results above demonstrate that some teacher candi-dates struggled with the process of constructing a portfolio, thecomments below reflect the positive perceptions of the majority ofthe respondents, who found the portfolio helpful in negotiatingtheir teacher identities. The quotations below speak to the help-fulness of having the categories articulated..

I felt the categories of my portfolio helped me to think criticallyabout my teacher identity. It helped to showcase who I was asa teacher and what unique skills and talents I could bring toa teaching position. I did not find it constraining at all. However,it was a lot of work initially.

It helped to understand the individual categories in order tointegrate them into single identity as to what kind of teacher Iwanted to be.

The next quotations indicate respondents' understanding that itis possible to use the categories to demonstrate how they enact theexpected competencies inways that reflect their beliefs. And, that itis the culmination of the portfolio as a whole e their beliefs andpractices across a range of repertoires e that represents one'sidentity as a teacher.

Having to write a belief statement for each section was benefi-cial. Each statement served as a reference point from which Icould compare my reflections on my practicum and in-classexperiences. In this way, belief statements helped me realizethat I needed to move beyond traditional elementary educationif I was to find fulfillment in this part of my identity.

I think the portfolio is an important consolidation of learningand definitely helped me organize my ideas and identity asa teacher. It made me think specifically about each of the abovementioned categories and reflect onwhat worked best for me asa teacher so far.

The last quotation is interesting in the tag, “so far,” that appearsat the end. This classroom teacher understands both the fluidity ofidentity and the notion that one's practices within given repertoireswill continue to change. This underscores the recognition that thereis more than one way to enact expected repertoires of practice andis in contrast to those who found the portfolio categories to beconstraining, perceiving that they had to give the ‘correct’ responseif they were going to successfully demonstrate their competence.

Many respondents seemed to understand the portfolio cate-gories as repertoires of practice in the teaching profession; thatthese repertoires are intertwined with teacher identity; and thatthe repertoires can be enacted in a variety of ways that reflect thepersonal beliefs of the individual. However, without explicit artic-ulation of the idea of expected repertoires of practice, many novicesdo not understand that their teaching identity is enacted day in andday out in the way inwhich they perform expected repertoires. Theramifications of this go beyond the portfolio, potentially impactingteaching practice, career development, and the roles that theseteachers play in their teaching communities.

8. Summary

Several major findings have emerged from this study withregard to how this sociocultural tool is perceived by recent B.Ed.graduates.

8.1. Perception of the categories of the portfolio as beingeither constraining or enabling

There was contradictory response regarding the helpfulness ofportfolio categories, with the majority of teacher candidates feeling

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that the categories supported their understanding of expectationsof the teaching profession and the construction of their teachingidentity. Many felt that the categories enabled them to think abouttheir identity in practice and negotiate their positioning in relationto expected repertoires and competencies. As one respondentindicated, “[The categories] helped to prepare my beginningthinking, initially compartmentalized, for grasping the complex-ities of The [College of Teachers'] Standards of Practice.”

However, others felt constrained by the categories, not recog-nizing the following: that the teaching profession has certainrepertoires of practice that are expected of all members of thecommunity; that individual teachers can enact these repertoires ina variety of ways; that the teaching portfolio can be used to conveytheir distinctive ways of enacting competencies with regards toexpected repertoires.

The difficulty that some candidates had in understanding theportfolio categories as representing repertoires of teaching prac-tices is a call to us as teacher educators about the need to be moreexplicit about the repertoires of the teaching profession. Responsesfrom this study reinforce the need to articulate this early in ourinitial teacher preparation programs so that teacher candidatesunderstand that teachers are part of a community of practitionerswho enact a shared repertoire of practices on a daily basis. Withearly conversation about these repertoires and their relationship tothe categories of the portfolio, candidates can ‘keep better records’and ‘gather students work and photos from the start’ as respon-dents indicated. Shifting our own repertoires of practice in this wayas teacher educators will help us be more effective, for enabling usto more strongly support our candidates in framing content andexperiences in their initial teacher preparation programs froma perspective of learning the repertoires of practice of the teachingprofession.

8.2. Portfolio format reflects teacher identity

Responses often blurred distinctions between portfolio cate-gories and the expected content with the physical format ofpresentation, saying things like, “The content required was a bitunclear. but it looks impressive!”We suggest that the portfolio isseen by many to be a signifier, both in its physicality and content.Thus, for many teacher candidates, the portfolio is an object inwhich their identity is as deeply invested in its physicality as itscontent. From the use of colour font versus black font, italics andlarge font versus bold and smaller font to the use of tables orgraphic organizers or bullets or photographs; each aspect isperceived as representing the identity of the portfolio creator. Thisis probably as true for the viewer as for the creator and shouldbecome part of the conversation about teaching portfolios.

8.3. Greater clarity and support is needed regarding purpose,assessment and preparation of the portfolio

Findings here, with teachers of up to five years' classroomexperience, reinforce results from other studies regarding the needto find better ways to articulate the purpose(s) of teaching port-folios and support teacher candidates in construction of theirportfolios. The variability across faculty regarding these issues ismentioned in other studies and probably needs to be accepted asa statement of fact. Therefore, ideally the re-framing of the portfoliowould also involve re-framing of courses by faculty, emphasizinghow the courses they teach help teacher candidates learn specificrepertoires of the profession and the theoretical bases for thoserepertoires. Explicit articulation by faculty of these connections intheir own courses would greatly clarify the types of entries that

might emerge from their courses as well as the purpose of thoseentries.

9. Conclusion

According to sociocultural theory, identity and competence arenot exclusive but rather fluidly interdependent. Our challenge is notonly to help our teacher candidates understand this, but also tosupport them in finding ways to think about their repertoires ofpractice/their enactment of competencies, in ways that are helpfulto them in terms of their growth as teachers and their ability todemonstrate their competencies to others.

The teaching portfolio has been shown to be an effectiveinstrument in this regard. However, as teacher educators, we canmore effectively support the use of this tool and better enable it toserve its multiple purposes. As stated in the literature and rein-forced in this study, the purposes of the portfolio need to be explicitand sharede but, wewould suggest, through a different lens. Giventhe innate challenges associated with developing a portfolio,novices must have support in understanding (i) how the categoriesrepresent the repertoires of the community of practice they areentering; (ii) how those repertoires reflect teaching competencies;(iii) how these repertoires can be performed in different ways; and(iv) how the way in which they enact those repertoires is linkedinextricably with their identity.

By re-framing the portfolio in terms of the shared repertoires ofthe teaching profession, portfolios may, in fact, be able to serve thedual purposes of enabling reflection on practice for learningpurposes and for credentialing purposes. This would shift presentconstructions of portfolios as serving either one or the otherpurpose and instead maintain that portfolios can serve both, aslong as the portfolio creator understands that expected teachingrepertoires are part of the teaching profession and that theserepertoires can be enacted inmultipleways. Teacher educators whoembrace this framework might also become more consistent intheir support of portfolio construction, recognizing that in theirpre-service courses, they are teaching theory or practice about oneor more of these repertoires of practice. Faculty then may also bemore willing to work with teacher candidates in identifying entriesthat would make visible the connection between their courses andparticular expected repertoires of teaching practice.

By recognizing the construction of the teaching portfolio as anact of negotiating identity in a new community of practice, teachereducators can more strongly support teacher candidates in trulymaking the portfolio their own. Similarly, teacher candidates mightmore deeply understand and articulate their beliefs and compe-tencies regarding the expected repertoires of practice in theteaching profession and therefore, their teaching identities.

Appendix. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, inthe online version, at doi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.02.005.

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