Professional portfolio of the preschool teacher: What is the real content?

Abstract

Quality in education is directly linked to teachers’ professional qualities. Teacher quality develops over a career in terms of personality, knowledge, skills and approaches. A teacher’s professional portfolio is a comprehensive tool which provides the opportunity to acquire information not just on professional activities, but also professional identity, which may significantly affect career performance. A professional portfolio has a particular structure, such as a CV, career development plan, lesson planning, learning processes, teaching reflections, self-assessment and co-operation with colleagues, parents, the public and others. The professional portfolio is gradually becoming part of the job for teachers in nursery schools in the Czech Republic in order to improve teaching quality. If, however, this tool is perceived as just another obligatory document, its content also changes. So what is the real content of the professional portfolio? In this study, this content is structured on the basis of an analysis of the content of a preschool teacher professional portfolio. Since this type of portfolio is currently in the phase of being introduced to the nursery school environment, data from the portfolios of students who are just setting out on their journey to becoming a professional is used. Specifically, they are ending their third year having completed a month’s work experience in nursery school. Because the analysed document is very large, attention is mainly focused on self-reflection aspects. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.