Portfolios : narratives for learning: assessment processes and phenomenon across multiple environments

This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio