Chapters 8: Professional Portfolios in ECE 1

Summarizing Developing and Presenting a Professional Portfolio in Early Childhood Education

Chapter 8

Janie N. Schutte

EED 255

April, 8, 2017

Chapter 8: The Collection Phase

In the collection phase, an early educator will gather artifacts that help showcase

classroom skills, training and other accomplishments in the field. Artifacts from the past, such as

in high school, may not be appropriate in showcasing the current development in early education.

Some examples of collection pieces that would be appropriate are: assignments from college

courses, special training and internships. Its recommended to educators to save these artifacts,
 Chapter 8: Professional Portfolios in ECE 2

including the hard copies. Educators can save backups of artifacts for their electronic portfolio

on a zip disk, travel drive or DVD.

Artifacts that an educator may want to include in their portfolio are:

Anecdotal records, assessments, attendance to school functions

Back to school night, behavior management plan, bulletin board displays

Case studies, child studies, classroom management plans, community

involvement, curriculum plans

Data analysis of student learning, differentiated instruction, ethics paper, field trip

plans

Individual education plan (IEP), interviews, journal entries, lesson plans,

newsletters

Observations, organizers, parent projects, philosophy statement, prop boxes,

reflective writing, research papers

Samples of student work, self-evaluation, teacher-made materials, thematic units,

volunteer experiences

An early educator can organize these artifacts for their portfolio around a theme, such as

using the NAEYC Standards. The artifacts could also be organized chronologically, such as by

the year. It may also be useful for educators to organize their artifacts using a checklist.

An example of using the checklist can be organizing the artifacts based on what course

they are from. The collection phase is an overall ongoing process that early educators will

continue to develop throughout the years.

 Chapter 8: Professional Portfolios in ECE 3

Personal Reflection
Chapter 8
After reading this chapter, I realized that I should have kept better track of certain

artifacts over the years. Some of my class assignments have been difficult to find for my

portfolio, due to not sorting them properly in my folders. However, this did change over the

years as I organized my classes by the name, and placed the corresponding assignments in that

folder. The alphabetical list provided in this chapter with artifact suggestions was very helpful. I

have already included some of the items on the list, but will use it for reference as I continue

building my website on Weebly. One item that I had not thought of including on my portfolio

was interviews. In the past, I did interviews with EED courses such as a preschooler interview.

Im going to continue going through my course folders that I have saved, so that I can seek out

artifacts that I may not have included. Something that I have done according to this chapter, is

organize certain artifacts in boxes. For example, I have past projects related to early childhood

education saved in the same box in my closet. If I ever want to take anything out of it, I can do

so. I recently opened this box and found one of my diversity projects, which I intend to add on

my website.
 Chapter 8: Professional Portfolios in ECE 4

References

Textbook Reference: Developing and Presenting a Professional Portfolio

Wiltz, N.W., Daniels, J., Skelley, H. A., Cawley, H.S., & Watson-Thompson, O. (2013).

Developing and presenting a professional portfolio in early childhood education. Boston:

Pearson