The use of visual images in building professional self identities

ePortfolios are recognized as a pedagogical process that facilitates and benefits the development of professional practice and critical thinking, curriculum, and assessment for Higher Education academic teachers. Effective personalized introductions to ePortfolios engage with the reader by sharing narratives and personal perspectives that demonstrate reflective thinking. This articledescribes a professional development symposium workshop in which a hybrid process explored the visualizing of professional selves. It built on a previous professional development session in which creators of ePortfolios were asked to find an image used as a metaphor or symbol explaining a philosophy of professional practice. The process described here is an amalgamation of techniques currently used in separate undergraduate degree programs by each author and adapted to demonstrate a way to think about the self as a professional and was planned by the authors after conducting a year-long series of webinars on ePortfolio professional development. The imagescreated by the symposium participants and their supporting statements demonstrate that explanations of a sense of professional self were enhanced by the ePortfolio introduction, narrative writing, and professional philosophy to engage an audience effectively. Application of this process allows visualimages, whether literal, metaphoric, or symbolic, to provide a means for academics as well as post- and undergraduate students to present and explain their professional selves to an audience.