A SCENARIO FOR PORTFOLIO-BASED ACCREDITATION OF

TEACHERS’ COMPETENCES IN ESTONIAN CONTEXT

Kairit Tammets, Kai Pata and Mart Laanpere

Centre for Educational Technology, Institute of Informatics, Tallinn University, Narva road 25, Tallinn, Estonia

Keywords: Accreditation, Teacher development, e-Portfolio, Competence management, Learning path.

Abstract: This paper focuses on the process of accreditation of in-service teachers’ competences, which is used in

some countries as career advancement option within profession. The accreditation process of senior teachers

in Estonia is somewhat different compared with other countries, as the next career rank can be granted to an

applicant only if she/he meets a number of formal measurable indicators. The higher career rank is valid just

for five years, then it has to be re-applied or else teacher falls back to previous rank and salary level. We

argue that current accreditation process does not support teachers’ lifelong learning and knowledge building

activities and does not make use of new technology (e.g. e-portfolio). Empirical study was conducted using

participatory design method involving in-service teachers. The first iteration of design-based research

process resulted with an alternative scenario for competence-based accreditation process involving use of

digital portfolio. The paper also provides a conceptual model for learning and knowledge building with e-

portfolio to support the new scenario of teachers’ accreditation process.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to (Hargreaves, 2000) we are at a

crossroad for teachers’ professionalism and

professional learning at the beginning of this

century. One possible future scenario leads to

diminished professionalism of teachers due to

regulations, another scenario calls to maintaining

and pursuing professionalism through teachers’

participation. One option to promote teachers’

professional growth is to provide an innovative

learning and knowledge building model for teacher

accreditation processes. (Bereiter and Scardamalia ,

2003) define learning as an internal and practically

unobservable process that results in changes of

beliefs, attitudes, or skills. In contrast, knowledge

building is defined as individual and social

constructive process of creating new

public/shareable cognitive artifacts, which reflect the

formation of various forms of knowledge by

individuals, groups and organizations (Bereiter &

Scardamalia, 2003). In the context of this study, we

refer to Learning and Knowledge Building together,

using the acronym LKB. Such model serves not only

as the extrinsic motivator to advance their career, but

also contains intrinsic motivators for planning and

maintaining personal competence development.

Several terms are used for teacher evaluation,

such as teacher certification, accreditation and

attestation. Certification is usually referring at the

initial evaluation of teacher’s professional

competences in the beginning of professional career.

Teacher certification and licensing systems exist to

assure the public that practicing teachers have

achieved a minimum level of competency, thereby

ensuring that unqualified people are not practicing

the profession (Heine, 2006). Teacher accreditation

can be seen as a procedure for regulating career

advancement within profession (Helleve, 2009) and/

or for justifying the decision for experienced

teachers’ salary increase (Männamaa, 2005).

In this paper we focus mainly on accreditation

process for experienced teachers, which supports the

professional development and career opportunities

of educators. This type of accreditation enables to

periodically evaluate the efficiency of their work and

conformity to the requirements of their rank on the

basis of self- and external assessment. ‘The Common

European Principles for Teacher Competencies and

Qualifications’ (2005) outlines a vision of an

European teaching profession and according to this,

teachers are expected to be lifelong learners who

continue their professional development, learning

and knowledge-building (LKB), throughout their

280

Tammets K., Pata K. and Laanpere M..

A SCENARIO FOR PORTFOLIO-BASED ACCREDITATION OF TEACHERS’ COMPETENCES IN ESTONIAN CONTEXT.

DOI: 10.5220/0003344102800289

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2011), pages 280-289

ISBN: 978-989-8425-50-8

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

careers.

In this study we explore the in-service teachers in

Estonian context. ‘The Estonian Teachers’

Qualification Standard’ emphasizes the importance

of facilitating teachers’ attitudes and understandings

to be reflective practitioners and lifelong learners.

The Estonian teacher is responsible for his or her

own professional development and for identifying

and planning personal learning needs (Eisenschmidt

& Löfström 2008).

This study focuses on three research questions:

• What are the most critical gaps and

controversies in current in-service teacher

accreditation policy in Estonia?

• How these gaps and controversies can be

addressed by switching to portfolio-based

accreditation of teachers’ competences?

• Which additional functionalities should be

developed to the existing e-portfolio environment in

order to support teachers’ accreditation process in

accordance with developed LKB model?

2 ACCREDITATION OF

TEACHER COMPETENCES

Accreditation has been described as a public

statement that a certain threshold of quality has been

achieved or surpassed (Campell et al., 2000). In the

context of our study, teacher accreditation is defined

as a process of raising the career rank within the

profession and which is based on external and

internal evaluation. Accreditation can be based on

qualification- or competence standards. Yet, there

are critics, who find that standards are not the best

possible solutions to evaluate teachers’ performance.

Thomas and Schubert (2001) believe that

professional standards not only promote the

“bureaucratization of teaching” but also skew the

nation’s ability to distinguish a quality teacher. For

example Lee & Owens (2001) have pointed that

there is a strong need for including performance

tasks with licensure tests to measure teachers’

competences.

The research conducted in the area of

competences points out the wide diversity of the

available definitions. It appears that there is no

commonly agreed-upon definition of competence

concept in the existing literature (Sampson & Fytros

2008). Competences are proved to be a critical tool

in human resource management, vocational training

and performance management. Sampson & Fytros

(2008) define competences as personal

characteristics (e.g. skills, knowledge, attitudes) that

an individual possesses or needs to acquire, in order

to perform an activity within a specific context,

whereas performance may range from the basic level

of proficiency to the highest levels of excellence.

Although, there might be an argument that

accreditation is more about minimum standards (be

they academic, competence, service or

organizational (Harvey, 1999), than about the

quality of the process, still the accreditation

decisions are, or at least should be, based on

transparent agreed, pre-defined standards or criteria

(Sursock, 2000).

Different countries have different requirements

for teacher accreditation, and there is no common

approach to evaluate teachers’ achievements. Many

countries have established professional qualification

or competency standards for teachers. There are also

different approaches to accreditation procedures, -

body of responsibilities, and set of criteria. For

example in Australia, the responsible body and the

standards are on state level, whereas in United

Kingdom, an executive non-departmental public

body is responsible for accreditation, and teachers

must meet standards for Qualified Teacher Status

(QTS). QTS is organized in three sections

(Professional Values and Practices, Knowledge and

Understanding, and Teaching). The United States

accredits teaching profession using school-

independent professional standards developed and

assessed by The National Board for Professional

Teaching Standards (NBPTS) - a non-profit and

non-partisan organization, where the most members

are teachers. Also, The National Council for

Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), from

US, accredits teacher education. The process is

based on six standards, where two of them measure

teacher candidates’ performance. And the standards

for knowledge, skills, and dispositions, the

assessment system, and unit evaluation address the

expectations set for the learning process and its final

outcomes (Wise, 2005). The role of technology in

NCATE accreditation is increasingly prevalent, and

it is expected that technology will be more in use in

assessment, planning, and evaluation (NCATE,

2006). Described ways to support teacher quality are

complementary in the sense that performance

management systems in schools ensure teacher

quality in the workplace, and professional teaching

standards explicate what is expected of teachers in

terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes (van der

Schaaf, 2005).

In Estonia, the teachers’ qualification system is

regulated by the decree of Ministry of Education –

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system of teachers’ accreditation, which prescribes

requirements for accreditation process (Männamaa,

2005). The aim of teacher accreditation process is to

support teachers’ professional development and

career possibilities, by periodical self-evaluation and

external evaluation exercises. After the successful

accreditation process, teacher will be granted one of

the four ranks: novice teacher (rank is granted by

national institution’s committee), teacher (rank

granted by school-committee), advanced teacher or

expert-teacher (ranks are granted by national

institution’s committee). Once a higher rank is

accredited to a teacher, all educational institutions in

Estonia have to acknowledge it (Krull, 2001). The

teacher’s base salary is in direct correlation with the

appointed rank.

The rank of an advanced teacher and expert

teacher is accredited for 5 years to a teacher, but the

rank of a teacher is certificated permanently to a

person after graduation and effective one-year work

experience at school. The project ‘National

development plan for teacher education 2006–2013’

compiled the description of the teachers’

competences into the ‘V’ Standard of Teacher's

Professional Competence. This standard has been

ratified by the Ministry of Education in Estonia, and

serves as the basis for planning the professional

development of teachers’ initial training, induction

year, and in-service training at school

(Eisenschmidt, 2006).

Current Estonian national system does not seem

to provide sufficient information for guidelines for

the development of teachers’ performance. By

focusing on formal criteria, the data does not give

much feedback either to teachers, schools or parents

on what spheres they need further development

(Männamaa, 2005).

Taking into consideration the national practices

of teachers’ accreditation process and Estonian

practice, we propose that the procedure would be

more efficient, if it would follow life-long learning

aspects, be more performance-based, and

technologically supported.

2.1 Theoretical Model for

Portfolio-based Accreditation

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) have developed the

cyclical knowledge management model, which

contains four phases of knowledge conversion

within an organization: socialization,

externalization, combination and internalization

(SECI phases). They described the SECI phases on

the basis of Japanese industrial organizations for

enhancing knowledge management. Some authors

have criticized the SECI model (Gourlay, 2003;

Poell & van der Krogt, 2003), mainly by focusing on

the validation issues of the model. However, we

argue that the SECI model could be used for

supporting learning and knowledge building (LKB)

in the context of teachers’ accreditation. For

example, Naeve, et al. (2008) have used SECI

phases for describing learning process at workplace,

focusing on reflective practices in networking and

collaboration. In this paper, based on original SECI

phases, we propose the LKB model for extended

organizations, developed by the IntelLEO project

(www.intelleo.eu), which also considers the self-

directed planning and reflection for competence

development in organizational context. An

Intelligent Learning Extended Organization

framework, developed in IntelLEO project,

represents a learning community that emerges as a

temporal integration of two or more industrial,

educational and/or research organizations with

different cultures (Stokic et al., 2008; Kieslinger, et

al., 2009). In teacher development context, Pata and

Laanpere (2008) have mapped the teacher

development activities using SECI phases:

Socialization - main aims of this phase are

related to participating in social networks across

various boundaries, talking about, sharing, shaping

and taking ownership of institutional standards and

community norms and visions. In this mode,

different organizational objectives, norms and

standards (National curriculum, teacher-competence

standard, school documentation, pedagogical

practice or accreditation requirements etc.) should be

accessible for individuals from different

organizations, and shareable between them in

electronic format to understand the work situations.

Externalization happens as part of accreditation

process when teachers are prompted to create and

articulate tacit concepts through abductive

reasoning, the use of metaphors for concept creation,

and the use of models, diagrams or prototypes. For

example, they could write down their plans and

reflect about the activities, but they need to consider

the organizational norms, and community

expectations as guidelines in their reflections. This

would make the individual tacit knowledge explicit,

documented and reusable as knowledge objects,

which can be shared with other persons (such as

one’s mentor from school, facilitators from

university, accreditation authorities etc).

Combination activities are primarily group-based

and can be supported by organizing community

discussions, presentations and meetings. For

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example preparing new versions of National

Curriculum, teachers’ qualification standards, or

innovative teaching materials and methods.

Internalization phase is mainly an individual

planning and learning process. Two aspects are

important in internalization: a) it includes planning

and reflecting on what competencies and goals

teachers want to achieve, simultaneously

harmonizing their plans with organizational visions,

norms and expected competencies (e.g. nationally

accepted professional competence scales, accepted

learning theories, etc.); b) planning the professional

development suggests learning from other

professionals’ experiences and combining it with

academic knowledge.

Our study in the context of the IntelLEO project

focuses on implementing the introduced LKB model

in teacher development process – in pre-service

studies, induction year program and in-service

teacher training. In this paper, we narrow it down

and explore only the accreditation process in

teachers’ profession. Therefore, as the current

accreditation process is focusing only on individual

level, not all the aspects of the cross-organizational

LKB model are essential. The most important

components of the proposed LKB model in

accreditation context are internalization and

externalization phases. In this process, teacher is

mainly expected to plan and reflect about the

professional competence development. Teacher

should document the development throughout his

everyday working practice in order to turn the

implicit knowledge to explicit.

Initially Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) did not

assume that SECI phases should be processed using

the technology. However, modern society presumes

more or less that teacher uses some technology for

professional development and life-long learning

(European Commission, 2007). Many studies have

demonstrated the advantages of e-portfolio in

supporting teachers’ professional development

(Zeichner & Wray, 2001; Helleve, 2009; Barrett,

2010). Barrett (2010) sees e-portfolio as an

electronic collection of evidence that shows person’s

learning journey over time, and may relate to

specific academic fields or to the lifelong learning.

Barrett adds that evidence may include writing

samples, photos, videos, research projects,

observations by mentors and peers, and/or reflective

thinking, and emphasizes the key aspect of an e-

portfolio – the reflection on the evidence, such as

why this pierce of evidence was chosen and what

one learned from the process of developing e-

portfolio. In competence-based teacher assessment it

is common to use portfolios with selected evidence

of performances and products in various contexts,

accompanied by teacher’s comments and reflections

(Wolf & Dietz, 1998). Portfolio assessment can be

used as the tool to ascertain whether teachers would

satisfy the required competences, and to formulate

guidelines for professional development. In the first

case, summative assessment is used to account for

the teacher’s quality, with possible consequences

such as merit pay and accreditation. In the second

case, assessment has a formative goal, and produces

information that can be used for planning activities

directed at further professional development (van

der Schaaf, 2005).

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

This study was conducted in the context of EU IST

program project IntelLEO (2009 – 2012). Study was

conducted in three phases – first we developed LKB

model for teacher development based on theoretical

considerations, derived from Nonaka and Takeuchi

(1995) knowledge management model. In the next

phase, interviews with the stakeholders were

conducted, where the theoretical LKB model was

discussed with them to validate the model. Also

potential barriers were identified, but also current

LKB activities were mapped in the accreditation

context. From the feedback, given by the

stakeholders, the potential scenario using cross-

organizational LKB model with technological

support in accreditation process was collaboratively

developed and discussed with the stakeholders.

Scenario will be empirically validated in the

teachers’ accreditation context in the next phase of

IntelLEO project in 2011.

This study used participatory design approach for

finding out how the accreditation process should be

implemented with the portfolio-based learning

environment. The aim of implementing the

participatory design elements in the process of

developing the technical solution is to bring the end-

users closer to the development process, and to

stress the importance of collaboration between users

and developers (Muller, 2002). Participatory design

assumes that workers themselves are in the best

position to determine how to improve their work and

their work life and, therefore, it turns the traditional

designer-user relationship upside down, viewing the

user as the expert and the designer as technical

consultant (Schuler & Namioka, 1993). Participatory

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design is the main approach for developing the

framework for the pedagogical and technological

solutions for this study (Kieslinger, et al., 2009).

The in-service teachers, representing Estonian

Professional Teachers Association, were involved in

the development process as stakeholders, co-

designers, and domain experts. First, they were

involved in mapping the state of the current

accreditation process, and further, they discussed

how it should be reorganized, including the

consideration of the individual and organizational

barriers. This activity was followed by the next

interview, where in-service teachers and researchers

collaboratively developed and designed an

alternative scenario for accreditation process

involving competency-based e-portfolio and the

LKB model. Participatory design elements have also

been used in the iterative, three-stage software

development process in the IntelLEO project,

resulting with paper prototypes, early prototypes and

eventually, full prototypes.

3.2 Sample

For the study, three in-service teachers from

Estonian Teachers’ Association were interviewed.

They were involved into mapping the current

accreditation process, testing the paper-prototypes of

services developed by the IntelLEO project, and

designing the expected accreditation scenario in

portfolio-based learning environment.

3.3 Data Collection and Analysis

For the study, we developed questions for an

unstructured interview, and the LKB model schema

that stakeholders edited during the interview

process. Questions were focusing on: a) artifacts and

documents to be presented to accreditation

committee (how documents are managed at the

moment, what activities are required from the point

of view of teacher or organization), b) processes

related with preparing and presenting the

accreditation portfolio, c) the role of technology, d)

stakeholders in the process of accreditation and e)

barriers related with accreditation process.

Data were collected with focus group interviews.

Each interview lasted about 1,5 hours and interviews

were taped. Interviews were divided into three

sections. Two iterations of interviews were

conducted in the study. The first interview focused

on validation of the theoretical LKB model in

accreditation context. We got the feedback to the

current LKB processes and about the barriers. The

next interview was conducted as the participatory

design session, where the stakeholders evaluated and

redesigned the scenario developed by the designers.

Stakeholders analyzed how realistic the scenario

would be, whether they could implement it in their

accreditation process, what challenges they might

meet from the individual aspect, and also from

organizational aspect if following this scenario.

In order to analyze the data received from the

first interview with stakeholders, a framework

analysis method was used. Framework analysis, as

described by Ritchie & Spencer (1994), is „an

analytical process which involves a number of

distinct though highly interconnected stages”. The

five key stages outlined are: familiarization;

identifying a thematic framework; indexing;

charting; mapping and interpretation. In the context

of this study, we conducted the following steps:

After data collection, we got familiar with the

recordings, and the taped information was typed.

The next step was writing the memos in the margins

of the text including questions, ideas, phrases, which

lead us to developing the categories. We focused on

two types of thematic context – the first was

predefined by the SECI model phases, and other

focused on themes related with the challenges that

might be faced in implementing this LKB model in

accreditation context. Categorization was based on

SECI phases (“socialization”, “externalization”,

“combination”, “internalization”) and was in turn

divided into “current situation” and “expected

situation”. In addition to those categories, there were

included technological tools (“blog”, “forum”,

“learning resources repositories”) and challenges

related with implementation of the model

(“facilitation”, “training”, “motivation”). In the next

stage, quotes were highlighted and sorted. In the

fourth stage, we lifted the quotes from the original

context and re-arranged them in the newly

developed appropriate thematic context.

4 RESULTS

First, we provide the description of the designed and

developed initial technological environment, which

may support accreditation process in teacher

development process. Then we discuss the gaps and

controversies of current in-service teacher

accreditation process in Estonia from the perspective

of teachers themselves. Finally, we present an

alternative accreditation scenario developed together

with teachers in which innovative IntelLEO services

will be used.

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4.1 Web Tools for Teachers

The main Web tools used in teacher development

context in Estonia consists of two Web portals:

Koolielu.ee - an Elgg-based social software

application, which is integrated with the central

learning resource repository and portfolio system for

teachers (Sillaots & Laanpere, 2009), and

LeMill.net - a collaborative authoring tool and

repository of Web-based learning resources

(Leinonen, et al., 2010).

Both, Koolielu and LeMill provide many

features for scaffolding professional development of

teachers: information management,

community/group formation, but also creating,

filtering, aggregating, finding, sharing and co-

editing various types of digital artifacts

(presentations, lesson plans, quizzes, interactive

worksheets etc). The interoperability of Koolielu

with LeMill and other social software tools enables a

teacher to compose a personalized online

environment for documenting the activities related

with his/her professional development. For example,

videos and images stored in Youtube and Flickr

could be embedded into the learning materials that

the teacher prepares in LeMill social repository and

shares with her students. Further, these artifacts

could be embedded as evidences of professional

practice into teacher’s personal portfolio in Koolielu,

where reflections and annotations can be added to

each object.

In addition to that, IntelLEO project has provided

a set of new semantic Web services that are based on

SECI model and can be integrated with the Koolielu

portal. Below we describe two of the Intelleo core

services (Learning Path Creator and Organizational

Policy Tool), which are the most relevant for

teachers in the context of accreditation.

Learning Path Creator (LPC) is a personal tool

for planning and documenting personal learning

paths, defined as sets of envisaged or completed

learning activities together with related knowledge

assets, events and competences. LPC provides users

with three main functionalities:

1. Users can manage and plan for their learning

goals (target competences). These learning

goals either stem from within an organization a

user belongs to, or originate from other parts of

Extended Organization. In either of these cases,

the LPC helps users to harmonize their learning

goal with organizational objectives.

2. Based on the contextual data representing

users’ tasks, learning goals, competences and

other relevant information, LPC recommends

appropriate learning paths for achieving a

certain competence to users or helps them to

create learning paths on their own.

3. It supports users in documenting and sharing

their learning experiences about how they have

achieved a certain competency via

accomplishing a set of activities, using

knowledge resources and communicating with

their colleagues.

Organizational Policy Tool (OPT) service used

to define needs and requirements at the

organizational and administrative levels: specifying

the organizational structure and job positions,

binding job positions to a set of competence

definitions, harmonizing the set of internal

competences with the one of other organization (e.g.

university), setting incentives for competence

management etc.

The third Intelleo core service (User Monitoring)

collects from Koolielu and LeMill the data on user’s

activities and artifacts, making it available for OPT

and LPC. OPT service has feedback functionality,

which allows the discovery of repeating activity

patterns. If several teachers have defined certain

personal competences frequently as their learning

goals, the accreditation commission members might

consider such personal goals to be relevant and/or

necessary to be integrated into the professional

standards of teachers. OPT enables to create and

suggest officially recommended learning paths for

supporting the accreditation process.

Learning Path Creator supports competence

management process of individuals. However, each

organization might have certain rules and policies in

terms of sharing organizational knowledge. In order

to address this issue, OPT assures that individuals’

knowledge sharing process is compliant with the

organization’s culture, rules and norms. Combining

LPC and OPT with the e-portfolio, which supports

reflection on actions using blogging, uploading files

as evidences of one’s competences, creating learning

materials, networking, collecting Web links,

learning resources, might support the professional

development and accreditation process efficiently.

4.2 Current Accreditation Process

The accreditation process to get novice teacher

certification, or raise the rank from the initial teacher

to the expert-teacher rank is currently not conducted

electronically. These teachers who would like to get

the expert-teacher rank, have to send the

documentation about their competences

electronically to an e-mail address of the

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accreditation commission. The rest of the procedure

includes the assessment of the following criteria and

activities:

• The conformity of his/her qualification to the

position applied for;

• Teacher’s self-evaluation about the professional

activities;

• Has acquired a scientific degree (master’s

degree usually) in the field of education;

• Has taken in-service teacher training (at least

160 hours of work) during the past five years;

• Has supervised pre-service teachers during their

pedagogical practice or novice teachers;

• Has participated in the development work of an

educational institution;

• Has compiled or reviewed pedagogical research

papers;

• Has been a lecturer of in-service teacher

training;

• Has organized contests, exhibitions of students;

• Has supervised students participating in

contests and exhibitions;

• Has compiled or reviewed published teaching

materials;

• Has performed in educational events,

conferences or written articles on pedagogical issues

in newspapers / journals;

• Has participated in or supervised the work of

educational associations and workgroups;

• Has supervised youth organizations.

• The candidate has worked efficiently (school

administrator’s evaluation)

Teacher who starts the accreditation process has

to fill in at least ten out of fourteen aspects and add

the documentation and evidences for each aspect.

After that, teacher has to forward this documentation

to the accreditation commission who formulates the

decision.

The interviewed teachers identified some of the

barriers in the current procedure of the accreditation

process:

Lack of Reflection. Teachers have merely to list all

the evidences of passing the courses or about

guiding the youth organizations, but they are not

expected to reflect about their activities.

No Connection with the ‘Standard of Teacher’s

Professional Competence’. Although teachers are

expected to follow their qualification standard in

their professional activities, none of the evaluation

aspects involves the official comparison with the

normative competence document. Even the passed

training courses could be taken from any field of

subject, just as long as 160 hours of studies have

been passed.

No Feedback. The commission will let the teacher to

know if the next rank has been nominated, but no

feedback is given if any of the aspects was

performed especially well, and what should be

improved in the future.

Do Not Support Life-long Learning. The

accreditation portfolio will be presented to the

commission either paper-based or just sent as the

text-documents. It does not include reflections or

innovative web-based learning materials as

evidences of teacher’s professional performance.

Neither does it include plans for the next working

period. In the future, when teacher would like to

apply for the next rank, she/he has no systematic

recordings what was presented to the commission

during the last time of accreditation, or what new

plans were made for the upcoming period etc.

Missing Performance-based Assessment. As the

accreditation process assumes presenting the list of

documents and paper-based evidences, teachers have

few chances to present the evidence of their

professional development using the digital learning

resources composed by them, they can not show

their belonging to the professional online

communities, no weblog reflections could be

presented as evidences etc.

According to this feedback, collected from

teachers during participatory design sessions, it can

be assumed that current accreditation process of

teacher profession is too formal, bureaucratic and

does not support teachers’ intrinsically motivated

LKB activities.

4.3 Expected Accreditation Scenario

This chapter provides a scenario for conducting

accreditation for teacher’s profession using e-

portfolio and LPC and OPC services of the IntelLEO

project. Thereby, we illustrate the applicability of

the proposed LKB model. The scenario was

developed in the participatory design sessions

together with teachers who are also willing to test it

empirically.

Jane has been working at school for 14 years.

She has participated in and successfully finished

several in-service training courses at the university,

been an active member of different associations, and

now she has decided to pass the accreditation

process in order to get the next rank in her teacher

career. Jane uses the portfolio-based environment

for accreditation process. Using her portfolio’s

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learning path creator, she has access to the official

competence template, where 14 required activities

for accreditation are listed as a required learning

path. (Note, this template was prepared using the

organizational policy tool). From these pre-defined

fourteen activities in the normative learning path, at

least ten should be completed to get the next teacher

rank. The activities may be ordered differently,

however, Jane wants, to present her development

like a storyboard. To provide evidence for each

competence, Jane describes her learning activities

and uploads files or adds a Web links as evidences

of her competences. All described learning paths

should be explained and self-evaluated with

reflections. It is not possible to save the template

when there is no comment or input behind each

required activity. Even if the entry states that “I

have not supervised students’ scientific works

because in my school...” the reflection of this

activity should explain why this activity was not

accomplished and still connected with competence

that have been accomplished. In LPC all the

activities in the learning path of the accreditation

form have to be connected with one or many

competencies from the competence standard

accessed via OPT. Finally teacher should make

plans about the professional development for the

next professional period. After completing the

accreditation process, portfolio-based learning

environment will create the central page, where the

storyboard with competences, activities and

evidences can be easily accessed.

The created content may be visible only for the

owner (teacher), only for selected users

(accreditation commission members) or only for one

community (school teachers, school board, etc.).

From the organizational point of view, The

National Examinations and Qualifications Centre

develops the formative evaluation learning path

template using OPT tool. Additionally, the learning

path activities will be associated with appropriate

competences described in the V Standard of

Teacher's Professional Competence, using the same

tool. OPT has a feedback module, which enables to

search and retrieve novel competence descriptions

created by teachers with LPC. These emerging

competences, identified by the teachers in work

practice, could be integrated to the new versions of

accreditation learning paths and teacher

competence standards. This enables to dynamically

update the teacher competence standards. The

connection between OPC and LPC makes the

template visible for the teacher who starts portfolio-

based accreditation process. After the teacher has

completed the accreditation process and provided

the commission with the access to the portfolio, the

commission is expected to give feedback to the each

of the competence-based activity in the portfolio.

They must write a reflective evaluation and give

suggestions for the future. Other users (teachers,

school board) can provide feedback via comments as

well. The teacher will save the commented

accreditation in portfolio, and use the filled in

competence-based learning paths for identifying

her/his gaps and planning her/his future

development. This portfolio profile of competences

may also be used in the future planning process,

when the teacher has to go through the accreditation

process again.

During the design sessions the participants

identified also some challenges related of applying

the described scenario in school context:

Resistance of School Board. Schools might have

objections related with public portfolios, which also

contains information about school as an organization

(projects, development, issues that influence

teacher’s participation in training courses). In order

to diminish the resistance, the public portfolios

(specially accreditation of learning paths) could be

presented in impersonal voice, especially the

personal details. The portfolios should remain public

to some extent, becoming useful as learning

materials and examples for the other teachers, pre-

service teachers or university teachers. The owner of

the portfolio should have the right to decide, which

parts of his/her portfolio should be shared and with

whom (e.g. mentor, supervisor, closest colleagues).

Inclusion of Policymakers. Teachers may be ready to

start using portfolios in their professional

development activities (including accreditation,

training courses, induction year, supervising etc). If

none of the organizations responsible for these

activities use portfolios as part of their LKB

processes, the teachers’ motivation to follow the

portfolio-based competence-planning and reflection

procedures might be low. Inclusion of the

policymakers to making innovative changes in the

LKB processes, and using new technology services

to support LKB is rather difficult. The need for

innovative changes may be highlighted by referring

to the official statements that current situation is not

sufficient, also by attracting representatives of the

involved organizations with training sessions for

using innovative LKB in their professional learning

activities.

Honesty of Teachers' Reflections. On one hand,

interviewees asked, would the teacher be honest

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towards the employer? Can one admit in the

reflection that she has not passed 160 hours of

training courses because of the school board who

does not support taking the course during the

working time. On the other hand, does teacher dare

to be honest to herself in the reflections and admit

that she has not passed 160 hours of training courses

because of being lazy. The interviewees pointed out

that the honesty of public reflections can be an issue

in every field of activities of teacher development

(documenting the school practice during initial

teacher education, supervised teaching during

induction year etc). Therefore, advancement of

critical self-analysis skills is important part of our

LKB model.

Described scenario is an example how to use

developed LKB model in the accreditation process

in teacher development context. Also this scenario

illustrates how e-portfolio, combined with Intelleo

services, which provide support for personal

learning (LPC) and organizational policy aspects

(OPT), can scaffold the implementation of the LKB

model.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This study illustrated that the current teachers’

accreditation process in Estonia is too formal and

bureaucratic and does not support teachers’

intrinsically motivated performance-based

assessment and lifelong learning. Using

participatory design as the research method together

with teachers, we mapped the current accreditation

process and the barriers, and developed the

application scenario for the expected situation in the

field of accreditation. Addition to that, the

functionalities of the additional services (Learning

Path Creator and Organizational Policy Tool) for the

portfolio-based learning environment were designed

as paper-based prototypes and evaluated.

Participant satisfaction among teachers from

Estonian Teachers’ Association demonstrated that

the implementation of the developed LKB model

and illustrative scenario about teachers’

accreditation process could be efficient. But the

process should involve addition to teachers also

school boards and policymakers (e.g. National

Examinations and Qualifications Centre), which is

the main challenge of this study. Still, the next stage

of the research will focus on implementation of the

developed scenario, as the teachers’ willingness to

participate in further evaluation, was high.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was funded by ESF grant 7663 and MER

targeted research 0130159s08, but also by IntelLEO

project. IntelLEO “Intelligent Learning Extended

Organization” is a research project supported by the

ICT program of the European Commission (DG

Information Society and Media, project no. 231590).

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