Abstract:

In the context of the Covid 19 pandemic, the educational system faces multiple challenges regarding teaching and learning content, instructional strategies, the training environment, and, most importantly, teacher and student attitudes towards teaching and learning. Innovative teaching approaches must be found to meet the needs of students who are subjects of many constraints imposed by the pandemic.

Technology has had and still has a substantial role in education, in maintaining human contact and in facilitating online teaching and learning. In response to the technological society, the curriculum based on STEM/STEAM is gaining more and more followers among researchers, policy decidents and practitioners.

In primary education, STEM/STREAM is carried out in the context of integrated approaches, being associated with strategies such as inquiry learning, learning by exploration, problem solving, project method, problem-based learning, portfolio etc.
The portfolio is a training and assessment tool that meets the interests of teachers and students. Its content exposes the knowledge, skills, values, and other results of the author. As a result, there is a typology of portfolios: learning portfolio, evaluation portfolio, personal development portfolio, etc. Based on the development of the technology the paper portfolio tends to be replaced by the digital one.

This study presents the results obtained in a survey that aimed to identify the opinion of teachers on the portfolio. The invitation to complete the questionnaire was addressed to the community of web-visible teachers and to teachers who are students in master's programs at several universities. The questionnaire was adapted by the authors according to the literature of the field and contains a demographic part and one dedicated to the topic of the portfolio. The second part of the research refers to the analysis of an interview related to the efficiency of the portfolio to teach integrated STEAM applied to a number of 20 primary school teachers.

The results show that respondents are familiar with the portfolio method and know the advantages and disadvantages of using it. They also recognize the importance of the e-portfolios to which they attribute an increased number of valences/positive features in comparison to the classical portfolio. Respondents have some difficulties in identifying the stages of creating a digital portfolio. Moreover, respondents identify the problems that may arise when making it. These results encourage us to say that the digital portfolio will become an increasingly used tool in teaching. In the opinion of the interviewed teachers, the portfolio method positively influences the formation of interdisciplinary skills specific to the integrated STREAM approach, such as inquiry, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, design and construction, critical reflection, communication and group work.

Keywords:

Digital portfolio, teachers, teaching strategies, integrated STREAM teaching.