Incorporating Electronic Portfolio to Promote Critical Reflection in a Preservice Education Course in Pennsylvania

Abstract

In a neoliberal society, accountability functions as the dominant technology of governing citizens. Reflecting this trend, the Pennsylvania State Department of Education (PDE) has been requiring teacher preparation programs to account for their candidates’ mastery of PDE competencies using electronic portfolios. Those competencies center around teacher candidates’ ability to apply their knowledge on the following areas in teaching: 1) subjects, 2) pedagogy, 3) learning theories, 4) assessment and 5) accommodation. Also, the competencies also include reflective skills, which are considered essential for continuous growth in one’s ability to apply these areas of knowledge in new situations. Among the four levels of reflections that critical educators present, 1) factual, 2) procedural, 3) justificatory, and 4) critical, PDE requires the first two levels. While these two basic levels of reflection are important, simply focusing on these two levels would result in producing teachers who lack critical consciousness and thus contribute to the sustenance of the status quo. In order to nurture critical teachers who promote social justice in and through education, teachers educators need to expect their teacher candidates to engage in reflections that surpass the expectations required by the state guidelines.

This paper provides an example of how an undergraduate pre-service teacher education program in Pennsylvania incorporates electronic portfolios in their course titled “Teaching Culturally Linguistically Diverse Students.” The paper demonstrates how the instructor and students in the course negotiated the tension between PDE competencies on reflection and critical practice of reflection (i.e., examination of one’s cultural identity and social-political implications of their teaching ). This case indicates the possibility for critical teachers to use an electronic portfolio as a site for both conformity and subversion to the dominant neoliberal discourse of teacher education, which places accountability at the center.