capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practices through e-portfolios

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This article was downloaded by: [University of Windsor] On: 20 November 2014, At: 14:15 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Professional Development in Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjie20 Capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practices through e- portfolios Anastasia P. Samaras a & Rebecca K. Fox a a College of Education and Human Development , George Mason University , 4400 University Drive, Fairfax , VA , 22030 , USA Published online: 22 May 2012. To cite this article: Anastasia P. Samaras & Rebecca K. Fox (2013) Capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practices through e-portfolios, Professional Development in Education, 39:1, 23-41, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2012.682318 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.682318 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: Capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practices through e-portfolios

This article was downloaded by: [University of Windsor]On: 20 November 2014, At: 14:15Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Professional Development in EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjie20

Capturing the process of criticalreflective teaching practices through e-portfoliosAnastasia P. Samaras a & Rebecca K. Fox aa College of Education and Human Development , George MasonUniversity , 4400 University Drive, Fairfax , VA , 22030 , USAPublished online: 22 May 2012.

To cite this article: Anastasia P. Samaras & Rebecca K. Fox (2013) Capturing the process of criticalreflective teaching practices through e-portfolios, Professional Development in Education, 39:1,23-41, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2012.682318

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.682318

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practices through e-portfolios

Capturing the process of critical reflective teaching practicesthrough e-portfolios

Anastasia P. Samaras* and Rebecca K. Fox

College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, 4400 UniversityDrive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA

(Received 7 November 2011; final version received 29 March 2012)

This study examines aspects of professional development experiences of 19Greek Fulbright teachers of humanities regarding schooling, learning and teach-ing as documented in e-portfolios completed during a project of academiccourse and fieldwork in the United States during their collective participation inan international professional development program. Multiple influences onteachers’ learning were made visible in the portfolios: cross-cultural ideas aboutschooling, student-centered teaching practice, international mindedness, criticalreflective practice, ongoing professional development, and changes andchallenges. Action plans implemented in Greek schools and documented ine-portfolios enabled multiple stakeholders to examine project impact on teach-ers’ thinking and educational practice, including the challenges and opportunitiesthey encountered upon their return to Greece. Recommendations for usinge-portfolios in international teacher professional development projects areoffered.

Keywords: teacher professional development; critical reflection; interculturalteacher learning; international teacher development; portfolios; technology

Introduction

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, there is an increasinglyurgent call for educators to prepare teachers to be world citizens; individuals whoare not only capable of working and living in a rapidly changing and globalizedworld, but who also possess critical reflection to improve their teaching practice,intercultural competence and international mindedness. The relevance and signifi-cance of preparing a citizenry able to meet rapid global changes call for opportuni-ties in teacher professional learning that should include building interculturalknowledge and cross-cultural capacity so that new global skills and concepts mightbe actively incorporated in schools and classrooms around the world (Munro 2007).This qualitative study was conducted as part of a larger teacher professional devel-opment project with those very goals.

The Greek Teacher Professional Development Project (GTPDP) brought 19 Ful-bright teachers of the humanities from schools across Greece to the United Statesfor a two-month, technology-enhanced professional development project, includingelectronic portfolios (e-portfolios) designed to capture the process and results of

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Professional Development in Education, 2013Vol. 39, No. 1, 23–41, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.682318

� 2013 International Professional Development Association (IPDA)

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participants’ learning experiences. As both project faculty and researchers, we askedourselves: ‘What aspects of teachers’ critical reflective teaching practices and pro-fessional development were made visible in teachers’ e-portfolios?’ In particular,we examined: ‘What puzzlements and understandings and reframed understandingsdid teachers report in their portfolios related to aspects of schooling and teaching inthe United States and in Greece?’ We also explored the question: ‘What did teach-ers discover and learn about themselves as professionals and about their Fulbrightand US colleagues during the process of developing their portfolios?’

This study examines the elements in the e-portfolios the Greek teachers createdduring the project as a medium to support, extend and make visible their learningto themselves, to colleagues and to the broader educational community. The studyalso explored aspects of teachers’ international mindedness and cross-cultural learn-ing experiences as they developed and were made visible in their e-portfolios. Howteacher educators are able to best facilitate relevant and productive professionaldevelopment for experienced teachers is a worthy investigation if we are to scaffoldthe building of intercultural knowledge and cross-cultural capacity for educators.The e-portfolios provided a window into the Greek teachers’ perceptions and learn-ing as a result of the program.

Conceptual framework

Since the early 1990s, portfolios have gained steady prominence in teacher educa-tion to capture teachers’ knowledge and skills and critical reflections on their educa-tional practice (Anderson and DeMeulle 1998, Fox 1999, Zeichner and Wray2001). Researchers assert that portfolio contents must be robust and supportedthrough the process of self-evaluation and reflection (Lyons 1998, Fox 1999,Gonclaves and Andrade 2007, Fox and White 2010). As reflection has been identi-fied as one of the key ways to help teachers broaden and strengthen their profes-sional development experiences (Schön 1987, Korthagen and Kessels 1999), webelieve it is essential for teachers to have explicit opportunities to document theirreflections and make their thinking public. e-Portfolios have emerged as an impor-tant medium to make visible these reflections, ‘encouraging deeper learning throughthe use of multi-media artifacts as richer forms of literacy to express understanding’(Lambert et al. 2007, p. 76). e-Portfolios can provide a dynamic, living space whereongoing professional statements and reflections are accessible to a full professionallearning community.

With the increasing use of portfolios, and particularly e-portfolios, in teachereducation that provide evidence of knowledge development, the portfolio has beenidentified as a vehicle to provide data about learning during teachers’ professionaldevelopment (Fox et al. 2011). In addition, professional literature has addressedvarious purposes for portfolio implementation with both pre-service and in-serviceteachers. For example, during professional development, portfolios have been suc-cessfully used as a forum for documentation of directed reflection (Wade and Yar-borough 1996, Hammadou 1998, Lyons 2006, Fox et al. 2008, White et al. 2009).We support the belief that reflective writing should be a key component of teachers’portfolios; this is also an area for which the need for additional research has beenidentified (Lyons 1998, 2006). Reflection, according to Shulman and Shulman(2004), facilitates teachers’ ability to learn from experience, initiate purposefulchange and become more conscious of their own understandings, classroom interac-

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tions and dispositions. Building on the work of Brookfield (1995), Cochran-Smith(2001), Darling-Hammond (2006) and Lunenberg et al. (2007) on the importanceand development of critical reflection, reflection has been incorporated as an essen-tial component of the e-portfolio for this project. The inclusion of such reflectivewritings provides a window into teachers’ thinking (Fox et al. 2007).

In addition to reflective writings, dialogue and collaboration are important com-ponents used in the professional development of teachers, and particularly the shar-ing of reflective writings and ideas among peers (Hord 2004). As one looks at hisor her own situated professional knowledge and practice through reflection, one canbegin to delve below the surface to confront some of the deep puzzlements encoun-tered in teaching and embrace personal professional accountability (Groundwater-Smith and Dadds 2004, Lunenberg and Willemse 2006, Lunenberg and Samaras2011). Engaging in critical reflection with colleagues can help make practice moreexplicit for change. Being able to construct and develop mutual knowledge withcolleagues can also help avoid misconceptions and stereotypes often associated withtopics of culture and diversity, as well as present opportunities to learn from othersand other cultures (Munro 2007). There is a sense of empowerment in being a partof a group examining similar questions. Collaborative reflection brings teachers outof isolation and offers them support when engaging in difficult or unknown content.These dialogues can take place within the faculty within a school, across schools oreven across broader international contexts, yet with sufficient administrative supportand follow-up support (Guskey 2000) and not as vehicles for institutional compli-ance (Groundwater-Smith and Mockler 2009). We believe that critical dialogue andreflection among educators can even promote teacher agency and personal profes-sional accountability. It can also help teachers move beyond a stage of ‘my system–your system comparison’ to support the growth of intercultural competence whereparticipants understand fundamental and shared beliefs about teaching and learningthat cross borders while adding new pedagogical practices, and adopt salient aspectsto authentically meet the needs of their own school context.

Whether local or more international in scope, teachers benefit from understand-ing one another’s perspectives, holding critical conversations and participating inprofessional learning communities, particularly given the rapidly changing world-scape in which we live (Tudball 2007, Samaras et al. 2008). Around the world,many teachers are finding themselves in classrooms that are increasingly culturallyand linguistically diverse and benefit from employing narrative as a tool for build-ing teachers’ thinking (Golombek and Johnson 2004, Ball 2009). Teachers need toreflect deeply and systematically, use critical thinking skills and pose problemsbased in their educational settings while they explore new pedagogies present insettings different from their own. The process of personal and collaborative inquiryas a framework for change is vital to developing a strong teacher identity and pro-fessional self-efficacy (Samaras and Freese 2006).

Method

Context

The GTPDP was funded through a grant awarded by the Bureau of Educational andCultural Affairs of the US Department of State. The Fulbright Foundation in Greecewas a partner in the grant and responsible for the selection of grantees andin-country planning and follow-up. On a broader level, the GTPDP is part of the

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Professional Development for International Educators Model (Kitsantas et al. 2011),which includes other ongoing international teacher professional development pro-jects that were collectively approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.Consent to collect and report data was provided by all participants; this ability tocollaborate, in fact, became an important aspect of the teachers’ growth of commu-nity and support of one another’s ongoing professional practice.

The project was designed for early-career Greek teachers with the goal of pro-viding an array of ideas, technologies and new perspectives for introducing and sus-taining innovative and educational practices upon their return. Because of theproject’s targeted emphasis on technology, teachers’ development of e-portfoliosand cultural stories made it possible to disseminate information with colleagues andstudents upon return to Greece, in terms of both educational practice and culturalunderstanding. Teachers’ e-portfolios were aligned with US national teaching stan-dards for professional teachers and were designed to provide a compilation of theirlearning and an application for their growing technological knowledge (Fox 2010).Rather than providing a single pedagogical model or teaching methodology basedon the US educational system or the presumption that a western teaching modelwould be the sole expert approach (Rapoport 2006), this project was designed topromote the development of pedagogical content knowledge and teacher expertisein multiple ways, including critical reflective practice and research knowledge thatwould support teacher research in multiple classroom settings and diverse contextsthroughout Greece.

In addition to the technology component of the project, a major goal of the aca-demic component of the GTPDP was toward the development of professionals whoare critically reflective of their teaching practice and who take an inquiry approachin their classrooms through systematic research and study of their practice forachieving positive impact on K–12 learning. To that end, five seminars weredesigned and taught by members of the grant research team: Reflective Practice forChange and the Professional Portfolio; Teacher Leadership through ActionResearch; Differentiation of Instruction and Assessment; Technology Integration inthe Humanities; and From Knowing to Doing Multicultural Education. We, the co-authors, co-taught the seminar Reflective Practice for Change and the ProfessionalPortfolio and the seminar on Teacher Leadership through Action Research, and col-laboratively designed and taught each lesson interconnecting the concepts of eachseminar. Naturally, we were curious about the impact of the program as it related toteachers’ reflective practice and leadership, which was the focus of our teaching.The e-portfolios provided a platform that enabled us to both capture and study thedevelopment of the teachers’ professional thinking over time, including upon theirreturn to Greece.

Researchers have asserted that, to be effective, professional development forteachers should be intentional, situated in practice and shared with critical friendsor trusted colleagues who seek support and validation of their research with peerreview (Tudball 2007, Samaras 2011). Accordingly, each of these university-basedseminars was purposefully aligned with field experiences in diverse US secondaryschools with the goal of also fostering intercultural understanding. In that manner,the program provided US teachers and students in the field placement schools withthe opportunity to gain global perspectives and to expand their professional networkto an international level. Project seminars were designed and facilitated to scaffoldteachers’ learning from their field experiences and the construction of their ongoing

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insights in their individual e-portfolios that were shared in critical friend groups inclass and electronically. Participants catalogued their cultural experiences in ane-portfolio including personal narratives and visual methodologies using thee-platforms of videos, digital stories, photographs and blogs. Blackboard Scholar®,a web-based community site, supported and extended our large group and smallergroup discussions. This sharing of critical ideas and reflections via the e-portfolioplatform was an accessible medium for easily exchanging and documenting under-standings of intercultural learning. The e-portfolio included prompted and free-writeteacher reflections and action plans for research to be implemented in Greece upontheir return from the US component of the program.

Moreover, the GTPDP was purposely designed as a structure for interculturaldialogue to also bring new ideas to campus and to surrounding schools serving ascommunity partners. Greek teachers interacted with teachers and students inschools; they taught lessons and led cultural events for the school community. Par-ticipants also interacted with university students including a cohort of teachers visit-ing from Russia who were also involved in the Professional Development forInternational Educators Model. The Greek teachers met and interacted with univer-sity faculty formally and socially, educating them on their teaching in Greece. TheGTPDP also included weekly cultural exchanges and trips with school and seminarfaculty. Participants in this study seeded critical friend working relationships duringthe project that they continued to develop when they returned to Greece. As theGreek participants embarked on their learning journey in the United States with astrong commitment to understand a new educational system and further developtheir teaching practice, each teacher created an e-portfolio designed to capture thesalient components of his/her experiences in schools and during seminars.

Participants

The participants were 19 in-service secondary education teachers of the humanitiesrecruited from 19 different areas and schools on Greece’s mainland and islandsthrough the Fulbright Foundation in Greece and were fully funded by the USDepartment of State. They are all Greek citizens (100%) whose primary language isGreek (100%). The group comprises 12 women and seven men with a mean age of32.3 and an age range of 27–40 years. Teachers came from multiple regions aroundGreece and teach in schools diverse in terms of student population, rural or urbanlocation and school mission. At the time of the program, participants’ highestearned degrees were 15.7% bachelor’s, 78.9% master’s and 5.2% doctorate. Theproject was implemented and hosted by George Mason University, a large state uni-versity in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, during September–October2010, with follow-on work in Greece during June 2011.

Data sources

Multiple and varied data sources were used in this study. As project researchers, wewere particularly interested in the aspects of teachers’ learning and cross-culturaleducational experiences documented in their e-portfolios. The e-portfolios were theprimary source of data and included the following: participants’ completed assign-ments and reflections for each seminar, including an action research plan for enact-ment upon their return to their classrooms in Greece; a digital story of their US

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experience; a personal blog; and videos and photographs of their experiences in USschools, communities and cultural trips in the surrounding and extended areas ofthe university, including trips to Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland and NewYork. The portfolio in this project was created as a performance-based document(Fox 2010) to provide evidence of teachers’ professional learning. It was designedto link the Greek project experiences with recognized professional standards forpracticing teachers as defined by the National Board for Professional Teaching Stan-dards.1 The core propositions of these Standards define what practicing teachersshould know and be able to do as educational professionals. Other auxiliary datasources included: pre-seminar and post-seminar reflections completed in the twoseminars co-taught by the researchers; semi-structured individual interviews; finalexit essays; and instructor reflections and researcher memos, including those writtenduring follow-up work in Greece.

Analysis

Data were analyzed qualitatively using the constant comparison method, with cate-gories identified (Creswell 2007) through open, axial and selective coding (Patton2002) as accomplished independently by each researcher. More specifically, weindividually read and re-read each teacher’s portfolio contents utilizing initial codeidentification with line-by-line coding, with tag codes noted in the margins and withmemos of repeated statements and themes. Preliminary categories were noted byeach researcher independently. Preliminary categories that did not indicate saturationwere not included in the major categories identified and overall trends were col-lapsed and re-titled accordingly. Secondary data analysis also entailed using theconstant comparison method in examining participant pre-seminar and post-seminarreflections, interviews, final exit essays, instructor reflections and researcher memosfor purposes of triangulating the data.

Researchers looked for themes as they appeared across data sources. As Max-well and Miller (2008) recommend, instead of leaving the data segmented as cate-gories, which may be concerned more with the structure of the text, the data wereanalyzed on a second level, with meaning drawn from the text in a holistic fashionby examining for the connections and relationships between the categories acrossthe full dataset. This was particularly useful in trying to understand and capture anarrative of participants’ experiences across a broad spectrum of data sources.

Results

Six major themes ultimately emerged from the data, as follows: cross-cultural ideasabout schooling; student-centered teaching; international mindedness; systematicand critical reflective practice; ongoing professional development; and challengesand changes. Supporting the development of these themes, several topics receivedtargeted focus during critical friend discussion, such as new technologies, communi-ties of practice, ongoing development as reflective practitioners, and ways to makeconnections between theory and new practices. Electronic sharing of action researchand self-study plans in the whole group, as well as sharing of their digital photo-graph stories, provided additional insights into teachers’ learning and the ways thattheir US-based learning experiences influenced plans for further development asclassroom researchers upon return to Greece.

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Cross-cultural ideas about schooling

Travelling to another country and being in another school system allowed partici-pants to hold a mirror to the ways schooling and teaching were different and alike inthe United States and Greece. Participants noted those differences and similaritiessoon after their arrival in the United States. The field experiences in schools wererepeatedly mentioned as a major highlight of the program, as they were affordedextended time to embrace aspects of cross-cultural and intercultural ideas andnotions about schooling practices. They discussed and documented their cross-cul-tural observations of classrooms and school events, first noting differences and draw-ing comparisons, then later remarking on similarities about teachers and teaching,and learners and learning across cultures. A female Greek language and history tea-cher’s reflection in this area captured a general sense of thoughts shared by others:

We experienced the differences in student life, had the chance to watch a footballgame, we were present during the ‘back to school night’, something that was totallynew to us, when parents come to school during the evening to follow an abbreviatedversion of their children’s daily schedule.

Participants’ reflections addressed their previously held stereotypes and differ-ences in the two university systems. This was evident in their reflections duringseminars at the university, as well as in the school-based field experiences. Theynoted there was an adjustment period moving from one system to the other, andtheir observations moved from a more superficial level focusing on differences to adeeper level as they progressed through the program and school experiences. Onemale Greek language and literature teacher reported it to be: ‘very common for col-leagues in the US to exchange views and ideas, observe each other’s practice and,what was the most overwhelming, was that they openly comment on them and dis-cuss them’. Schooling is not only different in its structure but in its practices, asthis male English-as-a-second-language teacher wrote in his blog:

Walking around schools last week I got to see things I could never have imagined …Are there schools where the bathroom walls are covered by the periodic table of ele-ments in graffiti form, made by the students themselves? Are there schools whereEnglish, Biology and Technology classes are successfully integrated in one collabora-tive interdisciplinary project? Are there schools where 13-year-old High School assign-ments are published in ‘Nature’ magazine or even ‘Scientific American’? If you sayno it’s better not to bet your money on it!

Although the two education systems differ, the Greek teachers came to realizethat teachers share common concerns and goals for students. The openness of theUS system and the willingness of the US teachers to share and interact with theGreek teachers were recognizably different from what they had experienced in theirGreek schools. Described by one teacher of languages about this experience, it was,‘as a reality I breathed in, asked questions, acted and interacted with American col-leagues’. A general expectation from teachers prior to arrival was that they wouldnot be greeted with warmth and hospitality, something they had been led to believebefore arriving in the United States. This stereotype was overwhelmingly dis-counted through their participation with project faculty, school-based faculty andAmericans in general. As one participant wrote: ‘This contact showed us that ste-reotyping people is the biggest mistake one can make.’

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Munby et al. (2001) note that the development of teachers’ knowledge is multi-faceted and involves far more than teaching skills or content knowledge. For teach-ers’ learning to be meaningful, it must be situated in their classrooms with learners.In teachers’ final essays, they asked for more ‘hands-on’ opportunity in field experi-ence classrooms with more explicit connections in each of the seminars to fieldwork. At this point in their experiences, the Greek teachers were no longer compar-ing the two systems but beginning to actualize how some of the approaches mightaugment their teaching approach upon their return home. They realized that, inorder to adopt a new approach or strategy, they must contextualize it in their ownclassroom and then test its effectiveness. One such practice is student-centeredteaching, which will be discussed in the following section.

Student-centered teaching

Teachers wrote and reflected on the different pedagogies, and in particular, theyfocused on student-centered approaches. One captured this well: ‘We saw the imple-mentations of new approaches to teaching …’ They commented on what this reallymeant pedagogically and discussed in their critical friends’ groups ways that theymight come to implement this upon returning home. Teachers’ understanding ofdiversity and its relationship to teaching and learning provided them with anotheropportunity to critically view their teaching and implement student-centered instruc-tion. A female French literature teacher, who is teaching in a context where thedemographics are rapidly changing, commented that she will: ‘try to take my stu-dents’ cultural background into consideration [while teaching] and never missingthe opportunity to discuss social issues with them’. The seminars in differentiationand multicultural education were of particular interest to them because consideringdiversity was a relatively new area for study in some parts of their country, andGreece is experiencing demographic changes significantly in some regions. Afemale technology teacher shared the following as she made sense of student-cen-teredness through her own learning and university experiences:

In Greece, and I might say in Europe in general, University professors are viewed asthe ultimate authorities, not only by their students, but also by society. Working inUniversity is considered to be the highest point of academic and professional achieve-ment. Consequently, they are expected to be remote, distant and difficult to approach,at least directly. … The US system does not operate on the professor being the author-ity but instead requires active student involvement.

Another participant posted her insight about this new concept: ‘Starting from theUS primary school to high school, students are not message or information recipi-ents. They are expected to interact with their teachers-professors and with eachother.’ They realized that this concept was difficult to grasp at first but: ‘eventuallyinteraction became a daily activity and participation in class discussion and activi-ties developed in a smooth and unobstructed manner after a while’. Teachers wereasked to capture their perceptions in narrative and visual form about their role asrefining their reflective capacity, which some chose to scan into their portfolios.Along with his visual Venn diagram, an English-language teacher wrote: ‘I [now]view myself as a facilitator whose role is to establish a learning environment wherestudents learn, interact, and negotiate their knowledge free of biases, prejudices,and stereotypes.’

30 A.P. Samaras and R.K. Fox

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International mindedness

All of the reflections at varying times addressed teachers’ growing perspectives con-cerning international mindedness. ‘Global citizenship is something that Greeks mustuse their imagination about,’ wrote one participant. At George Mason University,while some teachers reported that the diversity of the population and region wereseen as a striking contrast to what they see in modern Greece, a combination oflived experience in the United States along with seminar discussion and assign-ments helped to bring the idea of diversity to the surface for discussion. One femaleEnglish and Greek literature teacher blogged that these discussions, ‘helped meunderstand a lot about myself and where I stand as a teacher in my practice towardminority students’. Ways of knowing teaching and the world became evident toteachers. Another wrote:

What I definitely learned about myself as a professional is that I only carry one per-spective of the world around me; my decisions and actions as a teacher should bemore carefully researched, assessed, and re-planned, after being informed of the differ-ent perspectives.

Teachers grappled with the idea of a changing world that they recognized in theUnited States and now increasingly in Greece:

Up to some years ago, ethnic diversity was non-existent in Greek schools. Theoverwhelming majority of students were Greek in origin, either by both or one ofthe parents, and Christian Orthodox in religion. Nowadays, though, one can findstudents from a variety of countries, Albania, countries previously part of the USSR,Pakistan, India and several African countries, to name but a few. Consequently, anyteacher can find himself/herself in situations that require integrating skills and flexi-bility.

The content of seminars promoted teachers’ development of multicultural knowl-edge and intercultural competence, critical reflective practice and research skills thatwould support their ability to apply new knowledge realistically in their schools inGreece. Emphasizing international mindedness (Wang et al. 2011), research-basedpractice and critical reflection supported teacher leadership development duringimplementation in the United States, which has, in turn, provided an innovativeway to replicate the major tenets of the projects in Greece.

Systematic and critical reflective practice: ‘Anastoxastikos Ekpaideytikos’

When describing the role that reflection played in their earlier practice, participantsdescribed in their pre-seminar reflection that although they thought reflection wasof, ‘great importance, a key procedure and a main tool, reflection was not recordedor done in a very systematic and structured way’. There was repeated mention ofan appreciation for learning how to systematically reflect, and this was evidencedmost particularly as they developed their action research studies. One female musiceducation teacher wrote:

I believe that we are aware of reflective practice in Greece through scholars’ writings(I think the term we use for it is ‘anastoxastikos ekpaideytikos’) but I personally hadnever been assisted through the procedure itself.

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The e-portfolio provided a place for participants to enter their reflections andengage in the process more systematically through blogs and online discussionsabout questions and issues they wanted to discuss or that the readings may haveprompted; for example, ‘reflective practices were truly amazing in that they helpedus walk a path of self awareness as teachers, and critical friends have become anew part of my teaching practice.’ Teachers often held their discussions and reflec-tions in Greek because this enabled them to delve more deeply into topics and nothold language and writing in English as a barrier. We supported this because weknew that language plays a role in teachers’ thinking and articulation of practiceand the unique ways it connects to their own teaching practice. Some even wrotetheir reflections in Greek on their blogs and in their e-portfolios.

Participants planned to multiply their learning in Greece, an idea captured wellby this participant: ‘I would like to “push” and inspire my colleagues and students toapply the self-reflection of practice because it’s the best way to self-knowledge anddevelopment.’ An appreciation for the act of reflection was vivid in another partici-pant’s post-seminar reflection: ‘Before the course, I reflected a lot on my teachingpractices but from now on, I will not only reflect but also act’ – while another wroteabout ‘keeping a systematic record of my reflections and having a writing routine’.The willingness to be vulnerable and embrace the need for honesty and uncertaintyof their puzzlements was evident in this participant’s post-seminar reflection:

I will take back the certainty that you can find your way through a problem providedthat you are willing to get yourself in the uncomfortable position to come face-to-facewith your sometimes wrong teaching practices, get exposed to your critical friends,and put time and effort in planning for change … critically observe others and your-self is the first step to transform and progress.

Ongoing professional development

Participants worked in ‘critical friends’ groups (Hole and McEntee 1999) andbecame trusted colleagues who sought peer support and validation of their researchto gain alternative perspectives about their reframing of practice (Breslin et al.2008). This enabled them to consider the questions and examine ‘puzzlements’together and in the context of the Greek educational system, and then seek addi-tional input to expand their ideas. A participant stated:

I learned that in a teacher’s job, lots of issues shouldn’t be viewed as a problem ver-sus solution or readymade and offered by our peers, but more like an incident occur-ring during a line of events … that the teacher should always be on the move as alife-long learner.

We found repeated statements that students appreciated how positive critical friendwork was both modeled and taught: ‘… you’ve been an example of great coopera-tion and team work; observing the way you co-taught has set an excellent examplefor me as to how I could go with teaching my class collaboratively with anotherteacher.’

Thus, the idea of critical friends can extend to a co-teacher model that couldpromote the idea of interpersonal reflection. As the teachers grappled with newthoughts and made sense of how they would apply pedagogies in their home coun-try’s context, the e-portfolio served as a means to help them and us understand the

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process and complexities of their applications. Teachers had examined cross-culturalideas about schooling with critical friends and considered more closely their ideasabout how to prepare their own students for a changing world. Teachers are nowcontinuing to document in their e-portfolios the challenges they face to integratetheir understandings about student-centered instruction and interactive and experien-tial learning. Some express the complexity of returning to enact those changes aloneand in schools where such notions are new.

Farther-reaching effects of proposed action plans and critical friends groups onprofessional development continue to evolve. The results at this writing continue toprovide ongoing evidence of the process and types of reflection and action in whichthe teachers are engaged as they continue with their research and stay connectedwith their critical friends across the regions of Greece and with us. For example,one stated before departing the United States: ‘The [critical friend] discussionscould act as a dress rehearsal for a more coordinated attempt to build a group ofcritical friends in Greece.’ Another stated:

Upon my return from Greece, I hope that I will have the chance to use the same criti-cal friend protocol in my school, by finding a new critical friend team but also bystaying in touch with critical friend team I created in the US.

The e-portfolio continues to provide evidence that this practice has remained salientin their ongoing work; for example, ‘I would like, now to be able to have more ses-sions with my colleagues, regarding collaborations and possible ways to improveourselves, our students’ learning abilities, both as a whole and as different persons.’Prior to leaving the United States, he had already initiated talks with the computerscience professor:

to set up small online environments (e.g., blogs), where our students will be able tostore information, share it with each other online, exchange opinions and see this as alearning game, that will bring them closer, both with each other, and with the learningprocess.

The following quote documents a participant’s view on the sustainability of theircollaboration:

One of the most valuable experiences that I acquired was the chance to talk to people,share ideas in an informal, most of the times, way, regarding pedagogical matters, teach-ing procedures. To this aim, the notion of critical friends, although something, practi-cally, not unknown, pointed out the value of having people that you trust and let theminfluence your work, improve and facilitate your personal attempt to improve yourself… I will try to transfer this procedure in my own field in my small school in Greece.

The application of a research approach in their own diverse educational settingsaround Greece is a growing process in which the Greek teachers remained engaged.Through their reflections and action plans present in the e-portfolios, we have beenable to see that teachers are implementing and adapting their action plans and teacherresearch studies in their regions in Greece. While they remain in close contact withtheir GTPDP colleagues through technology, they must enact most of their workalone in their schools, or try out pedagogies with close colleagues. Project ‘criticalfriends’ both as a theme in the portfolio reflections and in their application upon

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return to Greece have become an essential element in the Greek teachers becomingteacher leaders and agents of change. With the support of the Fulbright Foundationin Greece, teachers are currently sharing their new understandings with other teach-ers who teach in schools nearby in regional professional development workshops.

Challenges and changes

In summer 2011, we visited the teachers in Greece for follow-on work that hadbeen initiated in the United States. We found that the teachers were still reflecting,implementing and experimenting in their classrooms and schools. Nonetheless, theresults indicate that the teachers’ e-portfolios and the reflective process that accom-panies the creation of these living documents had a positive impact on the teachers’knowledge and thinking. The evidence was made visible to us and to them throughits place in the e-portfolio. We logged the changes and challenges teachers reported,which entailed difficulty with re-entry, enacting new pedagogies in their home coun-try, and self-awareness and agency. Additional data were collected in Greece,including: a focus group session; teacher group presentations to an incoming cohortof Greek teachers; and our meeting with advisors to the Ministry of Greece, whichsupported our understanding of the teachers’ applications of new knowledge and itsimpact on their thinking and planning in their schools and regions.

Difficult re-entry

When asked the question of their re-entry into and their assimilation back into theirschool communities in the focus group, several teachers remarked: ‘I had to shiftgears … There was an indifference to my ideas with an administration that seemedexhausted. There were barriers to enact creative ideas.’ When asked what facilitatedtheir enactment of things they had learned in the project, a teacher explained that itwas ‘my willingness to re-create’ pedagogies despite the contrast of his school set-tings to places where he had observed the pedagogies in the United States. Anothershared: ‘There was little interest by others in my school of what I was doing andwhat I had learned abroad.’

Application of new pedagogies in home country

During their presentations, teachers reported they were using new pedagogies andtechnologies such as Movie Maker, Webquest and software for differentiation instudents’ learning. A teacher stated:

What I learned at the university helped me identify puzzlements in my teaching andparticularly multicultural and reflective practice in working with students with specialneeds. I teach language through history and politics which was my action researchplan. It made me arrange and rearrange my materials for teaching history. I presentedwhat I learned with Fulbright colleagues at a library for two groups of teachers. I con-ducted a textbook analysis as I learned at the University.

Another teacher explained that, after observing and experiencing an effective co-teacher model in the GTPDP, she returned to Greece to enact that model with abiology teacher to integrate the teaching of music and science.

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Self-awareness and agency

Throughout our conversations with teachers during the follow-on in Greece, theyshared their newfound self-awareness and agency as teacher leaders upon theirreturn to Greece. One notes that the project was ‘a birth to my career’ and ‘a greatleap’ as a motivator and leader, and another stated she was ‘re-charged profession-ally’. A teacher voiced that:

[The GTPDP] gave me the step I needed to move forward; and changed my pedagogy… I can see myself and how I can change things. I left with a deliverable and a modelto modulate assessment which was a school-wide self-assessment, a self-study of myschool which takes the other inspector of your classroom to teachers themselves.

A teacher working in a non-tourist rural area shared: ‘I gained a wider under-standing of my teaching and making time for my teaching.’ One expressed her needto move from the reflection stage to taking action now. Some teachers had begun tolaunch reform initiatives on a school-wide level that focused on self-assessment andreflective practice. Many had enacted some facet of their action plan and continueto reflect and implement strategies. These results were inconclusive, but revealedthe commitment of the teachers to live out their call to teacher leadership and theircontinuous professional development.

After interviewing the teachers upon their return to Greece, an advisor to theMinistry of Education shared that it appeared some project teachers were ‘ready tochange the world’ while others appeared to be implementing ideas they had learnedin the United States in their schools, and yet others found it difficult to adapt cer-tain US practices into their context. And yet, encouragingly during a focus group, ateacher stated: ‘You can’t copy models from US to abroad [yet] you can make con-structive criticism of work imposed by others on teachers in Greece.’ That is, thereappeared to be a sense of agency and assertion that reform should happen at thegrassroots level with teachers, or as one reported, ‘I saw an old place with neweyes’; that is, what was taking place at her school. She expressed a newfoundawareness and confidence:

… it’s been waking up and seeing what was happening at the school. I needed time toreflect and absorb what I learned in the U.S. … having time to reflect and see …reflection is now more of a habit. I am more observant of others’ actions and serve asa critical friend to others with new vocabulary activated as a colleague. I felt moreconfident I had a change of attitude and not just articulating my dissatisfaction tomyself.

A teacher working in a school with a large population of minority studentsnoted that she saw herself now as ‘an agent of change’. She exclaimed that, as theywere prompted to do by their instructors in the United States, they had returned toGreece and were ‘getting their hands dirty’ by doing and being the change beyondthe theory and into practice. Although another knew the term of reflective practicebefore, during the project she gained ‘a backbone framework’ for developing reflec-tive capacity where she was now ‘systematically able to walk through seven stepsof reflective practice’. What became apparent through the portfolio reflections andaction plans was that the Greek teachers recognized that they could now ponderand reflect on a new practice, strategy and ideas. They did not plan to make adirect, unfiltered copy of any particular practice in their new setting without care-

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fully considering the context first and then they would implement new approachesand consider the results by taking an inquiry stance through their action research.

Teachers play an essential role in any system or country, yet in the currentGreek educational system they face incredible challenges because of the economicproblems and increasingly new demands. This timely professional developmentexperience provided teachers with new eyes to see the changes they can make intheir own classrooms. Teachers have communicated to us via email and Skype thatthey are working to be agents of their own learning and professional developmentand continue to support each other’s efforts to improve their work with studentsand advance education reform. We continue to communicate with them via Skypeand offer consultation in their ongoing efforts.

Discussion

The e-portfolios served as a forum for application of the Greek teachers’ learningand reflection during their time in the United States and provided a place to extendtheir work upon return to Greece. While the e-portfolio itself, the reflective processand the technology to support the creation of an e-portfolio were new to teachers,they embraced and engaged in this new learning forum. The e-portfolio provided acognitive space for teachers and program faculty to archive reflections and docu-ment their experiences over time and in an ongoing manner. Teachers shared theirexperiences orally and through written reflection. They recorded new experiencesand shared digital archives that captured experiences in US schools and their inter-pretations of these experiences. By having the opportunity to read others’ reflectivewritings and impressions, and view colleagues’ digital photograph stories and vid-eos made during school-based activities, the e-portfolios encouraged teachers tocompare and contrast, to think deeply and to use multi-media to express theirreframed understandings (Lambert et al. 2007) about schools in the United States.These experiences were captured for sharing and have been updated upon theirreturn to Greece.

As an international project, the GTPDP has also enabled us to better understandand study our pedagogical practices with teachers outside the United States, as wellas in our work with practicing teachers in the United States. Even though these con-tacts continued over the months since the group returned and their work is ongoing,in many ways we feel as if we have only begun to understand the extent to whichvarious experiences have influenced their teaching practice and ours. The teacherpresentations and conversations with teachers during our trip to Greece allowed usto experience some of the teachers’ thinking, and yet we realize that there is morework to be done. The e-portfolios in this project have created a space where all ofus – both teachers and researchers – continue to understand and refine our under-standings about the results of these professional learning experiences as they areapplied in teachers’ classrooms. All of the Greek teachers were fluent Englishspeakers, and two of the researchers on this project were fluent speakers of Greek.The power of language in promoting intercultural understanding cannot be overem-phasized, and clearly this project had the advantage of translators of culture in boththe schools and the implementation of new technologies, approaches to researchand critical reflection to promote change. These interactions in both languageshelped teachers feel that they were part of a global conversation, particularly sincethey knew that other international work with teachers from other countries was

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occurring during the same year. Both teachers and instructors became more globallyminded about the challenges that schools and teachers increasingly face in today’sclassrooms. Language acquisition for immigrant populations and student motivationwere discussed as universal challenges across cultures at the outset of the twenty-first century. As a result, we as instructors were able to engage with teachers moreresponsively during class and after the completion of both the US and Greek com-ponents. This sharing of critical ideas and reflections via the e-portfolio platformproved essential to our growing awareness and thinking of intercultural learningand our ongoing self-study of our teaching practice (Lunenberg and Willemse 2006,Davey and Ham 2010). Several recommendations emerge as a result of this study.

Recommendations: using e-portfolios in international professional developmentprojects

Many funded international professional development projects provide opportunitiesfor international teachers to experience learning in new contexts with the goal ofbringing new ideas back to their home countries (Ball 2009, Dooley and Villanueva2006). The salient learning that occurs as a result of such experiences must beshared beyond the immediate grantors and grantees in an effort to promote dialoguethat supports the growth of intercultural understanding and consider the actualresults of such projects for multiple stakeholders. Our learning and recommenda-tions for designing programs and promoting critical reflection for teachers’ profes-sional growth are likely to have relevance across other intercultural opportunities.This study offers possibilities for transferable learning that other educators workingin domestic and international professional development programs may find useful.As a result of the implementation of this project and the accompanying researchfindings, particularly those accessible via the e-portfolios and the reflections andaction plans contained in them, we have the following recommendations for interna-tional professional development projects:

(1) As the notion of critical reflective practice and critical friends groups wasnew to international teachers, adequate pre-program orientation about devel-oping an e-portfolio and time within each seminar should be allotted to intro-duction, discussion, development and ongoing work in critical collaborativeinquiry so that this important professional skill might develop and becomepart of teachers’ ongoing professional practice, which they can continue withcolleagues.

(2) The professional portfolio provided an electronic forum for the Greek teach-ers to capture their experiences, reflections, action plans and growth. Thecontents of the portfolio should clearly align with the goals and objectives ofthe program in order for program faculty and teachers to be able to examinethe results of their experiences and consider these in the context of thedesired learning outcomes.

(3) We would like to see the participating US teachers also complete an e-port-folio that captures their learning over the project timeframe so that results ofthe project and intercultural learning results might be examined from the per-spectives of both countries.

(4) The e-portfolio captured the results of the academic component of the pro-gram and provided project faculty with an opportunity to examine the results

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of their work. In the future, faculty should specifically design promptedreflections that capture teachers’ growth and change at specified times overthe course of the project, including the fieldwork experiences for both USand Greek teachers. A blog or other online journal might also capture thenature and content of this growth and change over time, and upon return toteachers’ home country.

(5) When feasible, it would be beneficial for US K–12 teachers involved in theproject to have additional opportunities for follow-on work with their interna-tional partners to promote intercultural dialogue and ongoing learning. Fund-ing for such aspects of international work is not always available, butnonetheless, while some of the Greek and US teacher partners have remainedin contact, knowing more about the development of intercultural understand-ing for US educators and their K–12 students would be an important additionto promote deeper international understandings.

(6) Follow-up work has been supported through technology, and was enabledthrough the relationships forged while teachers experienced the educationalcontexts in both countries. The need for school-based administration supportfor teachers and continued support from a ‘mentor lifeline’ as a means forkeeping connected after the project is completed is an essential aspect ofcapacity-building in order to consider the longitudinal results and sustainabil-ity of intercultural programs as they impact both US and partnering coun-tries’ educational practices.

Future directions

In closing, we share a participant’s reflection and an instructor’s reaction: ‘I viewlife as a collection of instances, moments, photographs. This is all we are left withand all we remember after time passes. The people we meet and the moments weget to spend with them.’ In an email response to the participant, the instructorwrote:

Your comment reminds me of what my dear mother learned from her father who wasfrom Limnos: Olo ee zoe eenai matia. All of life is what we see with our eyes andour experiences with others (as opposed to what we collect and possess).

We realized that we also embrace this belief in our teaching and living practices.Our experiences with the Greek teachers not only provided us with a rich co-teaching experience where we were challenged to learn through new eyes, but alsofurther developed our capacity for deeper understanding about ways to engage inand promote intercultural competence with teachers in the United States and abroad.Because of the e-portfolio, we along with the teachers continue this researchjourney in multiple dimensions to seek deeper understandings of what the teacherslearned, what remained salient in their thinking and how these practices are beingapplied upon their return to Greece.

Many questions remain regarding the longitudinal effects of such programs butit was clear that the e-portfolio served an important place in this international pro-fessional development program by supporting and documenting teachers’ interna-tional experiences and providing them with a specified space in which to explorecritical reflective practices, document action research development and archive sali-

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ent aspects of their learning for ongoing professional learning. Face-to-face timeproved to be invaluable as it formed strong relationships among teachers, includingourselves. Nonetheless, it is the power of sustaining critical communication acrosscountries through technology that has the potential to support ongoing research tounderstand the scope and nature of learning further. We strongly believe that the e-portfolio, with a carefully developed set of objectives aligned with professionalteaching standards for practicing teachers, including systematic reflective writings,has supported Greek teachers’ learning and served to make visible to the teachersand to us the ongoing nature of this project and its teachers’ learning. It has createda cognitive and emotional space allowing us to continue to understand more aboutthe impact and challenges of our work and invite intercultural conversations aboutongoing teacher professional development and learning.

AcknowledgementsThis project is funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the USDepartment of State, Award #S-ECAAS-08-CA-204 (55). The ideas reflected represent thoseof the authors and are not endorsed by the US Department of State. Portions of this researchwere presented at the annual International Conference on Information CommunicationTechnologies in Education, 5–7 July 2011, in Rhodes, Greece.

The authors would like to recognize the contributions of Dr Debra Sprague, DrAnastasia Kitsantas, Dr Beverly Shaklee, Dr Amie Weinberg, Ms Maria Katradis and MsJessica Turner for their invaluable support of and contributions to this project. Our workwould not have been possible without their active involvement. The authors also would liketo extend our sincere gratitude to the Fulbright Greek teacher scholars who were sodedicated to the goals and objectives of this project and our research.

Note1. See www.nbpts.org.

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