THE STUDENT'S ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO AND THE TEACHING PRACTICE VIRTUAL GUIDANCE
THE STUDENT'S ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO AND THE TEACHING PRACTICE VIRTUAL GUIDANCE

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a study which has as its purpose probing the perceptions of students, teaching practice mentors and tutors participating in the experiment regarding the advantages of using electronic portfolios in the virtual training of future teacher students. Two groups of practitioner students in the IIIrd year from the Legal and Administrative Science Faculty within the Pitesti University, two mentors from the application school units and two teaching practice tutors, Moodle users of the teaching practice virtual guidance course, participated in the study. The premise this study is based on is that the electronic portfolio is a complex learningevaluation pedagogical instrument stimulating individual and group reflection on the students’ products made during teaching practice and on teaching practices. This study engages a qualitative methodology. The used instrument was the semi-structured interview based on the focus group method. Students have built their electronic portfolios step by step and maintain them by permanent update. They are not simple electronic files but a dynamic digital warehouse, a collection of representative products of their activity during teaching practice (lesson projects, assistance sheets at demonstrative lessons, psycho-pedagogical sheets, sound and video sequences, photos, work sheets, questionnaires, evaluation grids, etc.). Also, electronic portfolios provide mentors and tutors with relevant data on the supply, performances, progress, acquisitions of the practical learning of students. E-portfolios determine students to establish their own objectives by reference to the teaching practice activity and constitute reference elements for the discussion and evaluation of their activity by reference to the pre-established objectives. In the collaborative learning environment within the course for the virtual guidance of teaching practice, the students also made an electronic portfolio of the group, which coagulates students’ work, results, competences, abilities and experiences and which can be quickly viewed by the other students, by mentors and tutors, allows individual and group reflections, but especially facilitates the peer learning process. The conclusions drawn by this study emphasize the utility and the pedagogical potential of the electronic portfolio for the access to the personal history of future teacher students’ professional growth and development, for the presentation of the current competence level of teaching practice students, for students’ awareness of their own didactical behaviors, for the validation of learning through teaching practice, for planning practical training, for the identification of the future training needs and interests through teaching practice, for the evaluation of pedagogical competences, for the documentation of learning processes, as well as for reflecting on the professional development and practice.

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