What work samples should be included in an instructional design portfolio? (2024)

A portfolio is a powerful tool for instructional designers, enabling them to tell their story and highlight their strengths, passions, and achievements. It can be used to showcase skills and knowledge in different domains, contexts, and formats. Furthermore, a portfolio provides evidence of the designer's impact and results on learners and organizations. It also demonstrates creativity, innovation, and problem-solving abilities, as well as reflecting on professional growth and learning goals. Ultimately, a portfolio can help build credibility and reputation in the field.

When creating a portfolio, it's important to choose work samples that are relevant to your target audience and purpose. Consider including samples of online courses, webinars, or learning modules that you have designed or developed. Additionally, make sure to include a variety of work samples that showcase your skills and experience in different aspects of instructional design. Furthermore, you should select samples that reflect your personal style, voice, and values as an instructional designer. Lastly, highlight your achievements and outcomes rather than just tasks and processes. This could include samples that demonstrate how your work improved learner performance, satisfaction, engagement, retention, or behavior change.

Once you have selected your work samples, you need to think about how to present them in an effective and professional way. For example, you can use a website, a blog, a digital portfolio tool, or a cloud-based service to create and host your portfolio. Ensure that it is easy to access, navigate, and view on different devices and browsers. Additionally, organize your portfolio in a logical and clear way with categories, tags, filters, or menus. You may also want to provide some background and explanation for each work sample with captions, summaries, reflections, testimonials, feedback or data. Lastly, always obtain permission from clients or employers before including their work in your portfolio. Respect their confidentiality and privacy by removing or masking any sensitive or proprietary information. You can also use disclaimers, watermarks, or passwords to protect your work from unauthorized use or copying.

Your portfolio is an ever-evolving representation of your professional journey as an instructional designer, so it’s important to keep it up to date. You should add new work samples that reflect your current skills, knowledge, and interests, while removing or replacing outdated, irrelevant, or low-quality work samples. Seek feedback from your peers, mentors, clients, or employers on how to improve your portfolio. Additionally, review and revise your portfolio regularly to make sure it accurately reflects your goals and values.

Your portfolio is not only a tool for showcasing your work, but also a tool for learning, networking, and advancing your career. You can use it to assess your strengths and weaknesses, compare and contrast your work with other instructional designers, share your ideas with other professionals, promote yourself to potential clients or employers, showcase your achievements, articulate your goals and aspirations, and apply for new job opportunities. Your portfolio can be used as a self-reflection, benchmarking, communication, collaboration, marketing, branding, career development, and job search tool.

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

K-12 Education

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