Professional

Learning for ePortfolios in

High School
A Call to Action

By Kelsi Edgell
 What is Professional Learning?
● Made to be interactive, sustained, and customized to teachers' needs

● Encourages educators to take responsibility for their own learning

● Encourages educators to practice what they are learning in their own teaching

contexts
 Professional Learning Stigmas
● Boring

● Ineffective

● Time Consuming

● Not realistic

These are just a few reasons why educators have a hard time being excited

about “Professional Learning”.

 Let’s Make a Change
By using the “5 Principles of Professional Learning” we can effectively promote
the use of ePortfolios in a high school setting.

1. Duration
2. Support
3. Engagement
4. Modeling
5. Specific Content
 Duration
Professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new
strategy and grapple with the implementation problem.

● This should be a multiple day training

● Spend one day role playing (hands on learning)

● Practice the new concept on your own over a specific time span

● Meet back with your colleagues to collaborate

 Support
There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the
specific challenges of changing classroom practice.

● Higher administration needs to be fully aware of the new material being learned
● Let your administration know that you are in the middle of implementing something new
● Make sure that administration has your back on the implementation process
● Voice your concerns / celebrations with administration
● Ask for their support
 Engagement
Professional Learning should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can
participate actively in making sense of a new practice.

● Provide hands on learning experiences for educators

● Provide “rotations” so you can offer all learning types (remember, there is no “one way” to learn

● Allow educators in the audience to demonstrate during your presentation

 Modeling
Modeling has been found to be highly effective in helping teachers understand a new practice.

● Allow your educators to actually watch you model a lesson to your class

● Set up a “10 minute” slot in your presentation to model how to teach it to a class

● Allow educators in the audience to demonstrate what they think you mean

● Filter out all “ineffective” techniques

 Specific Content
The content presented to teachers shouldn’t be generic, but instead specific to the
discipline or grade level.

● Make sure you provide a section for every appropriate grade level & content area

● Make the presentation geared towards your specific audience for that day
 Effective Professional Learning with ePortfolios
By allowing educators to have an effective professional learning over ePortfolios, we
are providing them with the appropriate knowledge to make their students
“life-long” learners.
ePortfolios provide:
● A deeper learning, transfer of skills and knowledge

● Students the opportunity to be more intentional

● Aids students in integrating their personal, academic, and professional goals with their

learning
 Making a Difference
Let’s come together and make professional learning:
● Inspirational

● Engaging

● Effective

● Fun

By rethinking the way we teach our educators, we are allowing them to

confidently go and teach the society of tomorrow.
 References
Duarte, N. [Stanford Graduate School of Business]. (2013a, March 21). Nancy Duarte: How to tell a story
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrRQ1oQWQk

Duarte, N. [Stanford Graduate School of Business]. (2013b, February 19). Nancy Duarte: How to create better
visual presentations [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so9EJoQJc-0

Gonzalez, J. [Cult of Pedagogy]. (2013, September 16). How presentation zen fixed my bad PowerPoints
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=vkrl1j0IW-c