Putting together a portfolio is an excellent way to reflect upon what you have learned; what you have applied to your classroom practices; and what you will do next. It's a record of your work, your thoughts, and it holds the seeds to your potential.

A portfolio can be a tangible way in which an educator can shape his or her career, based upon the idea that there is always room for improvement. Many teachers who engage in the process of creating a portfolio are proud of what they have produced. They see where they began, and how far they have come. Many report that the "product" of a portfolio has helped them to clarify their goals, and it has helped them to find a teaching position. Portfolios are the most convincing testament to a teacher's work.

Traditional portfolios in the form of folders, boxes, or 3-ring binders hold papers, pictures, cassette tapes, and more. With an electronic Teaching Portfolio, known as an "E-Portfolio," information can be stored digitally, takes up little physical space, and is easily accessed from anywhere in the world.

Teachers Without Borders is pioneering E-Portfolios for teachers, and we have provided a way to for you to create one.

Your Electronic Teaching Portfolio (E-Portfolio) will contain the following elements:

In this course, you will be guided through the process of including each of these elements in your E-Portfolio. Once a section is complete, you will be able to post it electronically.

To view the site for your electronic Teaching Portfolio, click here.

Go to your disk or hard drive where you have saved all of your assignments, and open up the document that contains your written work for Course 1 Assignment 10. This is where we will begin.

You will now take the written pieces out of the assignment-template that you originally typed them into and place your words only in 3 new Word documents that you will create. Here's how to do it:

You are now ready to post your first 3 documents into your electronic Teaching Portfolio (E-Portfolio). Here is an overview of what you will be doing:

First, read the instructions below. Then click on the word "here" on the bottom of this page to access the E-Portfolio.

Steps to Posting Documents in your Electronic Teaching Portfolio (E-Portfolio):

Now that you've read the instructions, to post documents, click here

The importance of questioning has been emphasized throughout the Certificate of Teaching Mastery. In Course 1, you were introduced to the "Question Wall," and thereafter, you have added questions to this "Question Wall" in the WebBoard area.

The next part of your E-Portfolio has to do with questions you've created, and questions you can generate now. Here's what to do:

To access your E-Portfolio, click here.

The title for Course 1 is "Education for the New Millennium." Its sub-title is "Bringing New Thinking in Education into Classroom Practice."

For the next part of your E-Portfolio, think not only about Course 1, but about all of the courses you have completed thus far - 1, 2, 3, and 4. What evidence can you provide that shows that you have, indeed, brought "new thinking in education into your classroom practice?" You might choose a lesson plan, an activity you did with your class, and a reflection as a sample to give evidence. You might include one of the assignments you completed for the Certificate of Teaching Mastery or some other example to demonstrate the following:

If you use previous writings from assignments in any of the courses, be sure to create a new, blank Word document, and call it "Bringing New Thinking into Classroom Practice" and save your old work in this new document. Be sure to explain 1) and 2) from above. To do this, you might need to add a written Reflection to the assignment, anecdote, or evidence that you provide.

Be sure to send your document to your mentor and when your mentor says you're "Ready" to continue, follow the instructions in the "Posting Your Work" section and add this document to your E-Portfolio into the "Bringing New Thinking into Classroom Practice" section.

To access your E-Portfolio, click here.

For the next section of your E-Portfolio, "Highlights from Certificate of Teaching Mastery," choose 3 examples of your work:

In addition to showing each of the above, write 4-5 sentences for each example explaining why you chose that example for that category - 1) Best Work, 2) Most Challenging, and 3) Most Growth-Oriented.

Create a new, blank Word document for this part of your Teaching Portfoloio and name the document "Highlights from Certificate of Teaching Mastery." Put your 3 examples with the 3 reflections in this document.

Send the document to your mentor. When your mentor says you're "Ready" to continue, follow the instructions in the "Posting Your Work" section and add this document to your E-Portfolio in the "Highlights from Certificate of Teaching Mastery" section.

To access your E-Portfolio, click here.

To access your E-Portfolio, click here.

For this part of your E- Portfolio, you are trying to capture a variety of student voices to help convey a sense of your students - how they think about their own learning; how they think about some of the activities and projects you have done with them; how they think about school, their friends, their home life, their relationship with you; how they see themselves in relationship to their community and their place in the world.

To access your E-Portfolio, click here.

Later in the course you will create a Résumé, gather the names and contact information for 3 References and get Letters of Recommendation. You will also add the sections in your E-Portfolio called "Expertise I Wish to Share" and "What I Need." You may also wish to add a photo of your classroom and put that photo in the "Picture of My Classroom" section of your portfolio. You will be guided through creating and posting these items later on in Part Four of this course called "Launching Your Teaching Portfolio."

For now, let's go to the Special Topics in Part Two that will point the way to your designing and implementing a Service Project in Part Three of this course.