The experience of several investigatios of the Autonomous University of Yucatán is reviewed. Here a teaching portfolio was used to evaluate the needs for teacher development for State Upper Secondary Education. Portfolios were useful to describe the big picture of teaching staff quality and the need for actualization of the professors in a way that could not be achieved by mere surveys. Te results of the study allowed for the discovery areas of improvement that were later used for the operation of a state wide training program. The power of portfolios lies in the quality of the information provided by its elements. The quality of evaluation depends of the products included by the teachers, which may or may not be produced by themselves. It is important to know that that there might be other important elements for the betterment of teaching quality that may only be obtained by classroom observation.

Teaching evaluation, portfolio, upper secondary education.