Sunday 8 April 2012

My Professional Portfolio

I found Misty's post about Professional Portfolios very interesting and so I wanted to show you MY professional portfolio.

As a requirement to graduate, we had to maintain a Professional Portfolio throughout our student teaching practicums.  It was also required as a "Talking Piece" in our final assessment.  I have used my portfolio in interviews if I feel as though it will add to the conversation, however I do not rely upon it.  In my last interview it didn't leave my bag sadly, but I didn't feel like it was needed.

 The outside is very plain... Misty has some beautiful Portfolio covers for your binder at her TPT store.. I may need to update mine.
 Then when you open it up I have extra copies of my resume on the left side and on the right side I have my table of contents. 
 If you cant see in the picture, my table of contents has:
1. Resume
2. My Credo (this explains what I think a successful teacher is, and my knowledge, skills, and attributes for teaching)
3. Practicum Reports (This has my evaluations from all 4 of my student teaching practicums)
4. Lesson Plans (I organized this by practicum, my most recent practicum at the front and my latest at the back.  I only picked one significant lesson plan from each practicum)
5. Unit Plans (This is similar to my lesson plan format)
6.  Assessment (I outlined the different types of assessment i have used and I gave an example of a Unit test that I created)
7. Classroom Management (I discuss different techniques that I have used, and why classroom management is important)
8. Attributes and Experiences that Contribute to Teaching (These are skills that I have that contribute to my carrer as a teacher.  For example:  I was a tutor for a Grade 12 Biology and Math student while I attended university.  I also donated my personal art creations to a school fundraiser.)
9. Letters of Recomendation
10. Professional Development Project: Math Games (my final practicum required me to develop my own PD project.  I focused on math games and I included this in my portfolio)

 
This is my Credo page.  You can see at the bottom of the page there are stickers with numbers.  Each sticker represents a different KSA (knowledge, skill, or attribute) that I demonstrated.

 This is an example of my lesson plan.  It also has a KSA sticker at the bottom that says "the teacher understands that students can learn, albeit at different rates and in different ways".  In this lesson I provided different strategies in order to solve the problem (hands on manipulative, pictures, diagrams) so that every learner style could succeed. 

This was one of my first ever lessons! I read the Velveteen Rabbit to a Grade 1 class.  After we finished the book the students had to describe and create the rabbit at the beginning and at the end of the story.  Each rabbit was made out of cloth that I pre-cut for the class.  
This is an example of my Vincent Van Gogh art.  On the right hand side of the picture I have the notes the mentor wrote while I taught the lesson. 

This is a social studies lesson I created for a Grade 1-2-3 class.  I made Canadian Passports and we traveled to different locations and learned about the culture there.  We would board the plane (I would let off certain individuals at each stop.... this was great for classroom management because I controlled the group choice), have our passport stamped, and take notes in our travel journal. 

This was an example of a Unit Plan I created with another teacher.  I also took some pictures of our final projects to add some color to my portfolio.  

 I included this page in my Assessment section.  This was the first unit test I ever created.... as you can see the my little cartoon drawings.. (the kiddos really liked the test).

Lastly, this is my professional development project.  I made a total of 4 books.  I had to submit one to my professor, one to my mentor, I left one with the school, and kept one for myself. 


So what do you think??? I am curious how other teachers have their professional portfolio organized.  I followed my universities guidelines and changed some things for myself.  I also suggest checking out Misty's portfolio ideas on her blog.  I found it very interesting. 

12 comments:

  1. Wow. That looks like a lot of work!
    ❀ Tammy
    Forever in First

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I had 3 years to put it together, so it wasn't a horrible assignment.

      Amy

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  2. Thanks Amy! You gave me some great ideas! I love how you have the standards on a sticker and added it to the page afterwards. Everything I have done, I put in a page protector to save. I am going to make standard labels for each one of my pages now.

    I did not get any pictures of my kids working with me during my last practicum as that would have been too distracting for them but I can take pictures of the materials we used and add them with my lesson plan. I just didn't want to include plain pages without anything to go with them.

    The mentor notes were awesome as well. Great idea! For my resume, as it is in a page protector, I have several copies hidden inside this page protector in case anyone wants a copy. I did the same thing with my references. I have 3 extra copies of each. =)

    Thanks again!
    Misty
    Think, Wonder, & Teach
    3-6 Free Resources

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  3. That looks intense....I'm working on creating mine, THANKS for the ideas!!!

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  4. ahh, I remember these days!! Looks great and comes in handy for interviews!

    Im a new follower!

    Rachel
    Ms. Rachel’s Room

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  5. What a great resource! Wish we had done something similar "back in the day".

    ❀Barbara❀
    Grade ONEderful

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  6. Did you make the stickers or is that from you evaluation?

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    1. Hi Kristen!

      I typed up all of the teaching KSA's and I printed them on sticker paper. I then placed them on the page protector for whichever skill that document supported.
      Thanks!
      Amy

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  7. I found you on Think, Wonder, Teach while I was looking for professional portfolio blog posts. This is sooooo helpful! Thank you so much!

    Please come and link your post (and any other post related) to my Professional Portfolio and Interview Skills linky!!

    Professional Portfolio and Interview Skills Linky

    Renee
    Mrs. Mathis’ Homeroom

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  8. It is very Attractive and helpful for perspective teachers

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  9. Where did you get your table of contents from? I would love to use this for my teaching portfolio! I love how the colors coordinate with the colors of the tabs. Very organized!

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  10. Great organization. I find your portfolio very inspiring. Keep it up <3

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