Portfolios

Pre-Student Teaching Portfolio

Before you may student teach, you must prepare a developmental portfolio for department review. You will be given a folder in the Teacher Certification share space. As you complete your education coursework, you will place artifacts (samples of your work) into this folder and write a commentary in which you reflect on your progress toward meeting the program standards. A member of the department will review your folder and offer feedback as you begin your student teaching.

Your Pre-Student Teaching Portfolio will address the following:

Standards	Evidence
Content Knowledge	Transcript (major courses & GPA), Subject Area Test (Praxis II or ACTFL scores)
Pedagogical Practice	Lesson Plans, Assessments, Teaching Sample
Student Engagement	Teaching Sample
Adaptive Expertise	Lesson Plans, Coursework (EDUC 430, EDST 350, etc.)
Professional Conduct	Practicum Evaluations, Teaching Sample
Educational Mission	Coursework (EDST 440), Commentary

You will be given specific instructions for the portfolio during the spring term of the year prior to student teaching, typically while you are also taking your methods course. Those instructions will identify what artifacts to include and what prompts to respond to in your commentary.

You must submit this portfolio before you will be allowed to begin student teaching.

Final Teaching Portfolio (& edTPA)

While student teaching, you will prepare a portfolio demonstrating that you meet each of Lawrence’s 13 Teacher Education Program Standards. Beginning in September 2014, this portfolio will consist largely of the edTPA, a teacher performance assessment you complete during student teaching. You can assemble the portfolio by placing the requested artifacts and commentary in your folder in the Teacher Certification share space.

The Final Teaching Portfolio includes the following:

edTPA or similar collection of work - class profile, lesson plans, teaching videos, assessments, and commentaries

Student teaching essay - a reflective essay on your student teaching experience (required topics are listed in the student teaching syllabus)

Student teaching final evaluations - the final evaluations from your cooperating teacher and university supervisor

Teaching standards – A commentary in which you identify two independent pieces of evidence (such as a work sample and observer ratings) for each standard and state how they demonstrate mastery.

For the edTPA, you will gather materials from a learning segment of 3-5 lessons in the middle of your student teaching. For a non-edTPA portfolio, you may gather materials from lessons taught at different points in the semester. As you student teach, save lesson plans, handouts, assignments, and assessments. Scan sample student work at various levels (with names removed) before you return it to the students. Make videorecordings of your lessons so you can extract clips for your portfolio (if you can't find a video camera at your school, borrow one from Mudd Library or the Education Department.) The edTPA must be submitted within two weeks of teaching the learning segment; the rest of the portfolio must be submitted before the end of the semester.

Your Final Teaching Portfolio must be officially approved before you can be certified for licensure. If it is not approved, you will be asked to revise and resubmit it. Once your portfolio has been approved, you may need to satisfy additional requirements (remaining coursework, TB test, etc.) before you can apply for a teaching license.

If your Final Teaching Portfolio has not been approved by August 31, you will need to complete an additional 9 weeks of student teaching to be eligible for certification for licensure.

Preparing an Effective LiveText Portfolio

An effective portfolio is rich and viewer-friendly. It includes simple navigation, vivid images and examples, short videoclips that showcase highlights (and load quickly), and brief commentaries that provide context and say what each item shows about your teaching or student learning. Above all, an effective portfolio provides clear evidence that you meet each of the program standards.

Here are some tips to keep the process simple:

Load the proper template: Final Teaching Portfolio (Education or Music Education).
Every item has two essential parts: a commentary (short paragraph) and one or more artifacts (a lesson plan, assessment, student work sample, teaching video, resume, evaluation, etc.).
- A commentary should identify what the item is, how it was used, and what it demonstrates about your teaching (or about student learning).
- An artifact should be a PDF (created from Word or Powerpoint or scanned, etc.) or a movie file (for a teaching video).
A few pages--introduction, student teaching description, etc.--might just have an image (JPG) and text (a paragraph or two).

As you prepare the portfolio, consider the following:

Triangulate: Choose lessons that use different approaches, different activities, different types of assessment, etc. Choose work samples that show learning from students with different backgrounds or needs.
Highlight: Keep your teaching video under 3 minutes, showing segments of you in action. Compress the file so it loads quickly. On the page, provide a still image and a brief commentary with the video length in parentheses (2:10).
Showcase: Show off student work (but remove identifying information!). In your commentary, say what the assignment was and how the sample demonstrates learning. Include before-and-after examples for dramatic effect.
Tell Stories: Be the viewer's guide and tell stories about your teaching and students' learning. (But be brief--no one likes long-winded storytelling.)

In your Teaching Standards section, you must do the following:

Provide at least two independent pieces of evidence, such as a work sample and an observer's ratings or comments.
Name each piece of evidence (in bold) and and state in a sentence how it shows you meet the standard.
Make sure everything you cite is visible in your portfolio (lesson plans, etc.) or available in your Education Department file (transcripts, test scores, etc.).

Finally, review your portfolio from the reader's point of view. Is it complete? (Did you fill in every section? Provide two pieces of evidence per standard? Delete unused pages?) Is it clear? (Do your commentaries have proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Did you have them proofread?) Are the artifacts visible? (Do the attachments open as PDFs? Do the videos load quickly and run across the internet?) Do the commentaries make evidence clear? (Do you provide context? Highlight what each item shows?) Once you are satisfied that your portfolio is ready, send it to your university supervisor for review.

More information about electronic portfolios and how to create them can be found on the e-portfolio website. See Arno Damerow, Instructional Technologist (Main Hall 108), for technical help with LiveText, scanning and image editing, and video editing.