Grossman Research on Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education

Grossman, P. (2005).  Research on pedagogical approaches in teacher education. In M. Cochran-Smith and K. Zeichner (Eds), Studying teacher education (pp. 425 - 476). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Portfolios in Teacher Education

• "Portfolios in public school were used both for assessment purposes and as an opportunity to enable students to reflect on their own progress; the legacy of these twin purposes continued into their use in teacher education, in which portfolios are used both to stimulate preservice teachers' reflections on their development, as well as to assess that development, often in a summative way (p. 443)."
• Students' perceptions about the purpose of portfolios varied. Purposes included usefulness for employment and assessment (evaluation). Students also reported not knowing the purpose of the portfolio.
• Most students reported learning about themselves through the process of creating a portfolio. The process of creating a portfolio frustrated some students.
• "(Anne) Richert (1990) found that preservice teachers who used the teaching portfolios in talking with partners were more likely to reflect about content and the teaching of content. The preservice teachers also reported that the portfolios helped them remember teaching events more accurately and that the process of constructing the portfolio provoked them to think more specifically about their teaching (p. 444)."
• Studies about portfolios have not been devoid of context and therefore have not been compared.