Using teaching portfolio as a profesional development tool for early childhood teachers

Professional development in early childhood education is a critical factor for the quality of education. Professional development activities carried out in Turkey, are often working away from the effectiveness. There is a need for school-based, work-embedded professional development activities in which the teacher actively participates. The teacher-led professional development approach is a teacher-centered professional development design that is designed in line with the decisions taken by teachers regarding their classes and addresses the professional development needs of teachers. Teacher portfolio, is a professional development tool in the teacher-led professional development process of teachers that offers needs analysis, documentation, reflection and the opportunity to evaluate their performance. The purpose of this research is to examine preschool teachers' use of teacher portfolio as a professional development tool; to describe the characteristics of the teacher portfolios they developed and to evaluate the contribution of the teacher portfolio to the professional development of preschool teachers. In the research; a case study desnig was adopted, and the holistic multiple case design, one of the multiple case study designs, was used. The study group consisted of 9 preschool teachers who were selected with the maximum variation strategy as a purposeful sampling method. Data were collected through interviews, observations and document review. Professional Development Framework for Preschool Teachers was developed in order to guide the implementation process of the research. For data analysis, a content analysis was carried out within the scope of case analysis, then individual case reports were created and finally, multi-case analysis was used. Evans' Professional Development Conceptual Model was used for analysis framework. The findings showed that the teacher portfolio was an effective professional development tool for preschool teachers. The results of the research provide implications for the work to be carried out to increase teacher qualifications.