Ed.D. portfolios: An innovative way to align curricular, internship and work-site learning that supports the development and promotion of practitioner-leaders

This capstone is the result of inquiry work on behalf of the University of Washington's Ed.D. Leadership for Learning program. The focus of the inquiry work was to determine the use of portfolios in practitioner-leader doctoral programs. In this inquiry work portfolios are considered as a viable program alternative for the development and promotion of system-level educational leaders. An Ed.D. portfolio would be used to chronicle practitioner-leader experiences and learning over the course of a three to four year doctoral program. The portfolio would serve to showcase student learning and experiences throughout formative and summative documentation. These documents are generated through the articulation of three primary learning domains within the program. Those learning domains are curricular, internship, and work-site. Documentation, referred to in this capstone as practitioner-leader artifacts, represent a range of identified system-level leader competencies, or knowledge and skills. The use of a professional portfolio in a practioner-based doctoral program would serve to develop, promote and show evidence of collaborative, reflective and authentic practitioner-leadership and competence.