The contents of Education for Sustainable Development should be included in teachers’ initial and advanced training programs. A sustainable consciousness is one of the main foundations for determining the key competences for sustainability. However, there are not many empirical studies that deal with consciousness from education. In this context, the e-portfolio appears as a tool that promotes reflection and critical thinking, which are key competences for consciousness development. This work intends to propose a categorization system to extract types of consciousness and identify the levels of consciousness of teachers in training. For this research work, which is of an eminently qualitative nature, we have selected 25 e-portfolios of students (teachers in pre-service training) in the last year of the School of Education at the University of Macerata (Italy). The qualitative methodological procedure that was followed enabled deducing three bases that shape the consciousness of teachers in training: thinking, representation of reality, and type of consciousness. We concluded that the attainment of a sustainable consciousness in teachers requires activating and developing higher levels of thinking, as well as a projective and macrostructural representation of reality.

The contents of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) should be included in teachers’ initial and advanced training programs. In order to determine the key competences for sustainability, creating a Sustainable Consciousness is one of the main foundations. However, there are not many empirical studies that deal with consciousness from education. In this context, e-portfolio appears as a tool that promotes reflection and critical thinking, key competences for consciousness development. This work intends to propose a categorization system to extract types of consciousness and identify trainee teachers’ levels of consciousness. For this research work, of an eminently qualitative nature, we have selected twenty-five portfolios of students in the last year of the School of Education at the University of Macerata (Italy). The qualitative methodological procedure followed allowed to deduce three bases that shape trainee teachers’ consciousness: thinking, representation of reality and type of consciousness. We concluded that the attainment of a Sustainable Consciousness in teachers requires activating and developing higher levels of thinking, as well as a projective and macrostructural representation of reality.

Purpose -An e-portfolio is a useful tool to increase reflection and awareness in teachers and students. However, benefits of e-portfolio use are weakened by difficulties due to the lack of motivation, the heavy weight of creation and revision of the e-portfolios, the rigid tool structure. The paper aims to answer these emerging issues, showing how to cope with the above-mentioned questions, by proposing a structure for an e-portfolio able to fulfil the users' needs and to be perceived as an extremely usable and motivating tool. Design/methodology/approach -In the paper three types of e-portfolios are described. A brief survey of how the students used them with related data is provided. The research is based upon qualitative (students' posts) and quantitative (log tracement) data. Findings -After five years of experimentation and over 200 e-portfolios analysed, the paper describes lessons learned and suggests some guidelines that might be useful to plan the introduction and the implementation of an e-portfolio in post degree courses and for adult and in-service learning. Originality/value -In the paper some guidelines for designing formative portfolios are shown. These guidelines might be used to design and build feasible e-portfolios in different kinds of courses. The new perspective is about the use of formative e-portfolios in different learning paths. The paper shows how, starting from the same structure, the model is able to fit various needs, proposing technological and pedagogical devices in order to foster reflection and to promote formal and informal recording of learning activities.

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La complexité du système enseignement-apprentissage demande d’être interrogée quand elle doit se confronter avec des prescriptions ministérielles et des suggestions théoriques qui posent des perspectives différentes. La pratique d’enseignement devient alors l’objet d’analyse parmi plusieurs figures professionnelles pour construire une culture partagée à travers un dialogue entre savoirs pratiques et savoirs théoriques. Culture qui trouve une assise aussi dans les savoirs « de la pratique », savoir d’expérience organisé, avec du sens individuel mais aussi collectif. L’article présente la démarche d’une recherche collaborative qui a permis de découvrir des modalités avec lesquelles les enseignants a) parviennent à la construction des notions utiles pour leur propre pratique, b) modifient leurs propres routines et développent leur propre professionnalité, c) découvrent la présence des organisateurs dans leurs propres pratiques et leur importance dans la gestion de l’enseignement.

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