MET 6203 Module 11 - Portfolios

Portfolios are a great way to organize artifacts that verify professional growth. They provide a record so that personal progress can be assessed. Working portfolios that contain large amounts of work over time can be used to organize lesson plans, pictures, multimedia, and other materials used in the classroom or on the job. As a teacher learns, works through and creates curriculum, portfolios can document instruction that works and ways of adapting that instruction for all students. Assessments portfolios can be used to keep track of individual student progress. Items saved by the students themselves or by the teacher. During my student teaching, I was assigned to oversee this in a fourth grade classroom. Students were both asked to save certain pieces and were able to choose some of their own that they felt best showcased their work. I was surprised at how easy parent/teacher conferences were when the portfolio was used in a student led conference. They were much harder on themselves and more honest. I used student folder on our server to have students archive work over the year, creating a type of assessment portfolio that they are able to save to a jump drive at the end. Resource room and lower achieving students use this to encourage continued progress and I am able to document accommodations.

The showcase portfolio is certainly what teachers bring to job interviews! It is designed to showcase the best work within representative categories. For our kindergarten graduation, I am using voice over power point slides and a small web cam to create mini showcase portfolios for each kindergartner. I is amazing to me how much they have grown over the course of this short school year. My fourth grade portfolios were traditional print based, but more telling information can be stored with a digital portfolio.

I have scanned and saved awards, certificates, letters of recommendation and added multimedia projects in my portfolio. It was set up to follow basic guidelines highlighting Michigan's teaching standards. Now I would certainly focus more on the integration of technology into my lessons and teaching along with spotlighting my role as a technology leader in my building. Certainly the additional training of my graduate course work and being a part of MI Champions will be great additions to a professional teaching portfolio. I also think my goals should be more specific and I would weed through the items I have collected to really pick the best of the best. My reflective statements also need to focus on technology infusion and planning that supports a documented increase in student achievement. Being able to leave behind a digital portfolio with a wealth of information definitely gives an advantage. If you keep up with saving good artifacts and attaching them to standards right away, the creation and fine tuning of a professional portfolio is so much easier.