About Your Digital Portfolio

This page has information abou the Digital Portfolio and its components. A brief description of each component will be listed here. For more information, follow the provided links.

The Digital Portfolio initiative was put into practice during the Fall semester of 2002. To learn more about the history of the Digital Portfolio initiative, visit the early planning stages page and original status report. To se the Digital Portfolio model, view the interactive or printable map.

The Digital Portfolio can be broken down into several components. Some of these components are common to all students. These core components are listed and described below. Keep in mind that a finished portfolio of quality will have much more than what is listed below.

• INTASC Principles

  INTASC stands for Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium. The INTASC website can be found here. There are ten INTASC principles that a potential teacher should master. The INTASC principle section of the Digital Portfolio should reflect that mastery. It should also reflect the growth of the potential teacher's understanding of the principles. In order to demonstrate mastery of the principles, each principle should have reflections, artifacts, and rationales to accompany the artifacts.

• Resumé

  According to Dictionary.com, a resumé is "A brief account of one's professional or work experience and qualifications, often submitted with an employment application." It should make sense then that a potential employer would want to have your resumé handy when making an employment decision. Your Digital Portfolio represents much of who you are, so a simple resumé that details your work and school history should be sufficient. This resumé writing guide has some great advice for resumé writing and can easily be adapted to your digital portfolio.

• Philosophy of Education

  All digital portfolios should include a philosophy of education. When a potential employer is looking to hire a new teacher, they will use your Philosophy of Education as a basis on whether or not to consider you for the position. The Philosophy of Education should be a concise way to explain your beliefs about teaching and learning.

• Teaching Resources

  This section of the digital portfolio is dedicated to external resources for teaching and learning. It may be tempting to create a long, unorganized list oflinks, but most people would find this unhelpful and confusing. Make the best use of graphics and tables to add interest and organize your page for maximum usability.

The Decision Points are requirements which must be completed to progress through the teacher education program (s) at Ball State University. Each department and content area differ in their requirements. Elementary and Special Education are generally course-based, while the secondary content areas determine their own specifications in addition to the Teachers College requirements. Descriptions of the secondary education and content area specifications and contact information are available in the Undergraduate Handbook and rGrade.

If there is something we have not included that you feel should be, let us know. Contact methods can be found in our Contact Us section.