This article presents, in a concise manner, the theoretical foundations of the teacher’s professional portfolio, its essential components and the relevance of the digital format, with reference to the model offered within the iTeach Romania ecosystem.
Update note (September 2026). When this article was written, in March 2026, the framework methodology on the teacher’s professional portfolio was still a draft under public consultation. It was approved by Order of the Minister of Education and Research No. 3858/2026 (OM nr. 3.858/2026), published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 392 of 8 May 2026, with an earlier start than the draft foresaw: portfolios are structured, completed and submitted from the 2026–2027 school year. Section 4 has been updated, and a new Section 5 discusses Portofoliu.digital, a platform that implements the structure set out in Annex 1 to the order.
Keywords: professional portfolio, teacher, continuous professional development, e-portfolio, iTeach, Order No. 3858/2026, Portofoliu.digital
1. The Professional Portfolio as an Instrument for Documentation and Reflection
In the international specialist literature, the teacher’s professional portfolio is recognised as one of the most effective instruments for documenting pedagogical activity and promoting continuous professional development. Seldin (2010) identifies the portfolio as a point of convergence between academic preparation, teaching practice and systematic reflection on one’s own activity, arguing that it provides an integrated picture of professional competence that cannot be captured through one-dimensional instruments.
The relevance of the portfolio goes beyond its administrative function. Edgerton, Hutchings and Quinlan (1991) demonstrate that the process of selecting and commenting on teaching artefacts constitutes, in itself, an act of comprehensive self-evaluation. Wolf and Dietz (1998) confirm the superiority of portfolios over evaluations based exclusively on student opinion questionnaires, precisely because of the diversity of sources of evidence included. Mues and Sorcinelli (2002) emphasise that the inclusion of systematic reflections transforms the portfolio from a mere record of achievements into an authentic instrument for professional growth.
2. Essential Components of the Teacher’s Portfolio
A complete professional portfolio covers five complementary domains. Professional preparation — degrees, continuing training certificates, transferable professional credits — represents, according to Seldin (2010), the formal foundation of teaching identity. A distinctive component is the professional philosophy statement, which Edgerton, Hutchings and Quinlan (1991) consider the „cornerstone” of the portfolio, as it provides narrative coherence to the entire documentation process.
Classroom activity includes lesson plans, unit plans, assessment instruments and observation reports. Goe, Bell and Little (2008) confirm the benefits of a flexible format for measuring teaching quality, superior to standardised instruments, particularly for subjects and levels that are less frequently assessed through such means. McIntyre and Dangel (2009) demonstrate that portfolios used systematically in teacher evaluation produce more reliable results than other forms of appraisal.
Teaching materials produced — worksheets, tests, digital educational resources, published articles — confer visibility to professional contributions. Career development reflects the longitudinal perspective of professional growth; Darling-Hammond, Hyler and Gardner (2017) demonstrate that extended professional development opportunities with practical applicability significantly increase the quality of curricular implementation, while Fullan (2008) argues that deep conceptual change in teaching requires years of sustained continuing training, made visible precisely through the portfolio. Educational activities and classroom management complete the picture of teaching professionalism: Klieme, Pauli and Reusser (2009) identify classroom management as one of the three central dimensions of teaching quality, alongside supportive climate and cognitive activation of students.
3. The Digital Professional Portfolio
The transition to the digital format (e-portfolio) is supported by a consistent body of research. Yadav (2024) documents the advantages of the e-portfolio in teacher education: permanent accessibility, the possibility of including multimedia content, easy updating and support for the construction of a professional online identity.
4. The iTeach Model in the Context of Order No. 3858/2026 of the Ministry of Education
The iTeach platform (www.iteach.ro), developed by the Institutul pentru Educație (Bucharest) in partnership with Social IT, concretely illustrates the application of these principles. Istrate (2011) synthesises the programme’s vision in two fundamental conceptions: continuing training as a complex process — going beyond formal courses to include collegial exchange, pedagogical research and the publication of materials — and online socio-professional networks as learning communities for the transfer of good practice. The iTeach points system operationalises the concept of community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), transforming the platform from a document repository into a living environment for professional exchange.
The iTeach portfolio (My Resources — Portfolio: my profile) integrates: articles in educational journals with an ISSN, digital educational resources validated on digitaledu.ro, course completion certificates, announcements of public activities and tools for recording classroom activity. Its components largely correspond to the five sections laid down by Order No. 3858/2026 (Article 6(1) and Annex 1), applicable from the 2026–2027 school year, which explicitly allows the portfolio to be kept in digital format (Ministry of Education and Research, 2026, Article 11). For an extended discussion of the iTeach portfolio, see Editor iTeach (2026).
The public and verifiable nature of the products registered on the platform directly addresses the need for transparency required by rigorous institutional evaluation, reducing the bureaucracy associated with certificates and supporting documents.
5. The Professional Portfolio in Digital Format: The Portofoliu.digital Platform
The order introduces requirements that a portfolio built from the outputs of a teacher’s activity on a platform does not meet on its own: documents organised into the five sections and 17 components of Annex 1, in chronological order of acquisition within each section, with an index (opis) dated at every change (Article 6). To meet these requirements, Social IT has developed Portofoliu.digital within the iTeach ecosystem, a platform for the teacher’s professional portfolio in digital format. Teachers sign in with their iTeach.ro account, and certificates, attestations and DigCompEdu self-assessments issued on iTeach.ro can be imported on request into the matching component.
Two features of the platform relate to the arguments in Sections 1 and 2. The first concerns the diversity of evidence, which Wolf and Dietz (1998) associate with the advantage of portfolios over evaluations based on opinion surveys: the platform brings documents of different origins into a single structure, which evaluators read in the same order for every candidate. The second concerns verifiability. The methodology sanctions the inclusion of false documents (Article 9) but provides no technical means of control. Portofoliu.digital attaches a cryptographic fingerprint and a public verification code to every submitted version, so that any later alteration becomes detectable. Creating an account is free, and the individual subscription costs 121 lei per school year (VAT included); schools may also conclude a contract. The launch announcement on iTeach.ro (in Romanian) gives a detailed presentation.
Conclusion
The professional portfolio is, at once, an instrument of reflection and of authentic evaluation of teaching competence. The theoretical foundations consistently support its superiority over one-dimensional evaluation instruments. The transition to the digital format amplifies this usefulness. The iTeach model demonstrates that the necessary infrastructure already exists within the Romanian educational system and can be institutionally recognised within the methodology approved by Order No. 3858/2026, while the Portofoliu.digital platform shows how the structure required by the order can be implemented in digital format.
References
Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective teacher professional development. Learning Policy Institute.
Edgerton, R., Hutchings, P., & Quinlan, K. (1991). The teaching portfolio: Capturing the scholarship in teaching. American Association for Higher Education.
Editor iTeach. (2026). Developing and managing the teacher’s professional portfolio: iTeach platform. EDICT – Revista educației, 3/2026. https://edict.ro/developing-and-managing-the-teachers-professional-portfolio-iteach-platform/
Fullan, M. (2008). Curriculum implementation and sustainability. In F. M. Connely (Ed.), The Sage Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction (pp. 113–122). Sage Publications.
Goe, L., Bell, C., & Little, O. (2008). Approaches to evaluating teacher effectiveness: A research synthesis. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.
Istrate, O. (2011). Repere ale inovării educaționale: programul iTeach pentru dezvoltarea profesională continuă a cadrelor didactice. iTeach: Experiențe didactice, 9.
Klieme, E., Pauli, C., & Reusser, K. (2009). The Pythagoras study. In T. Janík & T. Seidel (Eds.), The power of video studies in investigating teaching and learning in the classroom (pp. 137–160). Waxmann.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.
McIntyre, J., & Dangel, J. (2009). Using teacher portfolios as an instrument for teacher evaluation. Teacher Education Quarterly, 36(4), 67–85.
Ministry of Education and Research. (2026). Order No. 3858/2026 approving the Framework Methodology on the development and management of the teacher’s professional portfolio [in Romanian]. Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 392, 8 May 2026. https://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/310373
Mues, F., & Sorcinelli, M. D. (2002). Preparing a teaching portfolio. University of Massachusetts, Center for Teaching.
Portofoliu.digital. (2026). Platform for the teacher’s professional portfolio. https://portofoliu.digital
Seldin, P. (2010). The teaching portfolio: A practical guide to improved performance and promotion/tenure decisions (4th ed.). Anker Publishing.
Wolf, K., & Dietz, M. (1998). Teaching portfolios: Purposes and possibilities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 25(1), 9–22.
Yadav, A. (2024). E-portfolios as tools for continuous professional development in teacher education. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-025-13869-y
* * * (2026). Cursuri online pentru profesori – dezvoltare profesională continuă, la un click distanță. În: Cursuri-online.ro. https://cursuri-online.ro/cursuri-online-pentru-profesori
Note: In preparing this material, artificial intelligence tools (Elicit, ChatGPT) were used to identify the most relevant sources of information, as well as for drafting, removing redundant information, improving accessibility and final proofreading of the text.
Romanian version: https://revistaprofesorului.ro/portofoliul-profesional-al-cadrului-didactic-fundamente-teoretice-si-aplicatii-practice/