As you near the midpoint in your teacher education program, you are, no doubt, thinking reflectively and critically about teaching, about learning, and about your development as a beginning teacher. We hope that you will cultivate this spirit of reflection about your work as you complete your classes and begin your student teaching. The assignment described below will provide some structure and guidance to this process, culminating in the development of a curricular portfolio and a portfolio presentation near the conclusion of this program. This portfolio may form the foundation of the professional portfolio required for the Continuing License.

Descriptions

Curricular Portfolio: The first part of this assignment is the development of a curricular portfolio. The portfolio is a collection of items that you believe represents the best of your intellectual work, your teaching philosophy, and your experiences in the classroom. But the portfolio is also more than just a mere collection. What you select for inclusion should reflect how you think about teaching and learning, and how you have synthesized what you have learned about teaching. Think of your portfolio as something that you could take to a job interview as a representation of the best of who you are as a person, a thinker, and most importantly, an emerging teacher.

As you begin to work on this assignment, you may want to think of several audiences for your portfolio. Certainly, at some point, prospective employers may be interested in reviewing your portfolio. But, more immediately, you will be asked to share your portfolio with your fellow students and faculty in the School of Education. And, perhaps the most important audience of all for your portfolio is you. Putting the portfolio together and viewing it (and revising it) over time will be a significant learning experience and will help you understand your own development and goals as a teacher.

Be selective in putting together your portfolio. While there is no specific length requirement for a portfolio, you will need to include enough to enable your audiences to understand you without overloading them with so much that they lose sight of the things that make you unique. You will be provided with some specific suggestions as to what might be included as the due date for this assignment approaches. The reason we are telling you about this now, however, is so that you can be mindful of any of your assignments or creations that have particular meaning to you and that might be well suited for the portfolio.

Portfolio Presentation: The second aspect of this assignment is a formal presentation you will deliver at the conclusion of this program. Your presentation will be shared in front of a small audience (roughly 8-10 people) including some of your peers, and at least two faculty members. The intent of this assignment is to provide you with an opportunity to think carefully and critically about your development throughout the program. You will be given time (15 - 20 minutes) to share with the audience some of the important growth you have experienced throughout the program, some of the questions that you may still be wrestling with, aspirations for your evolution as a teacher, etc. There is no specific requirement for the presentation other than that you will share an honest reflection about you and your teaching-self.

Although this assignment is called the "Portfolio Presentation," you are not simply to walk the audience through your portfolio page by page. You may choose to use aspects of your portfolio by way of illustration or example, but you will be expected to go beyond the curricular portfolio as you share your thoughts and insights about your development as a teacher in greater depth. That is, you might think of this assignment as a presentation of your intellectual portfolio.

It may be too early for you to worry about what you will say in this presentation right now. That being said, however, you should be mindful of experiences you have had in classes or in your placements that might be good episodes around which to base some of your remarks. For example, perhaps you are involved in a situation in your classroom that became a powerful learning experience for you about teaching, about learning, about students, etc. You may want to tuck this experience away as an example that you could return to in your presentation as a distilling moment in your development. Remember- this presentation is not simply a description of what is in your portfolio. Nor should it be a mini-lesson you did in the classroom that you now rework and deliver to your peers. Rather, it should tie together your experiences in the program, the theoretical perspectives that guide your teaching decisions, your beliefs about teaching, and your insights about your future growth as a teacher.

Due Dates and Evaluation

Completion of the portfolio and the presentation will be due in June. Specifics regarding date, times, and format will be forthcoming. Although the curricular portfolio will not be due until June many students in previous cohorts of this program have shared their portfolios with prospective employers at various times throughout the spring semester. So, you may want to be prepared for similar opportunities. Remember that you can always add and delete from your portfolio. The important thing is to be cognizant, along the way, of important documents that you might want to refine and include in the portfolio.

Although these assignments are required for successful completion of this program, neither of these assignments will be "graded" as part of a particular course. For the curricular portfolio, your supervisor will read your portfolio and make comments and recommendations as to how the portfolio might be altered or enhanced to make a stronger statement with prospective employers. Your presentation will not be "graded" either, although you should be prepared to answer questions at the conclusion of your presentation. Typically, each presentation is followed by 10 minutes of questioning in which the faculty representatives and your peers may ask you questions to help clarify your remarks, or to push you to think beyond what you shared with the group.

Should your advisor feel as though your work on either of these assignments did not reflect well upon your intellectual creativity and potential, you will be asked to meet with your advisor and a second program representative to discuss alternative routes to successful completion of the assignment.

More information will be provided about this assignment as you progress throughout the program. However, it is never too early to start reflecting on who you are as a teacher, and where you would like to be at the end of this program!

10/16/00