| Since the later 1980's, pre-service teacher assessment reform has carried out in American teacher education programs. The reform scheme is to change from a model of paper and pencil evaluation to authentic assessment in which the teacher is responsible for demonstrating his or her own professional knowledge, skills, dispositions and potential professionalism in actual teaching situations. Portfolio, a typical authentic assessment, provides the pre-service teachers and teacher education programs with one effective means of monitoring, documenting and assessing their professional growth throughout pre-service teacher education program.The emerging curriculum reform and professionalization of teacher and teacher education in our country is impacting pre-service teacher education in which how to train pre-service teachers as reflective professionals and how to promote their professional development through an efficient assessment have been becoming the critical issues. The main purpose of this study is to provide significant experiences for our pre-service teacher education reform by studying American pre-service teacher portfolio deeply and thoroughly.The paper consists of five sections:Section one is introduction that comprise of of problems statement, a review of the literature and definitions of key concepts.Section two analyzes deeply the emerging backgrounds of American pre-service teacher education portfolio, including "learner-centered" constructivist teacher education, reflective teacher and teacher education and change of pre-service teacher education assessment.Section three discusses the types and elements of American pre-service teacher education portfolio.Section four introduces and analyzes the operational mechanism of American pre-service teacher education portfolio, contains aspects of pre-service teacher portfolio construction, assessment and implementation in American teacher education.Section five mainly analyzes the functions of pre-service teacher portfolio, and finally provides some reasonable suggestions based on the urgent need of our teacher education reform and American experiences. |
