English Methods

Spring 2006

Dr. Meehan

Final Project: Learning Portfolio

“In the best of all classrooms, assessment includes observations of students in action, finished work, and students’ own self-assessment.”

                --Exploring and Teaching the English Language Arts.

The objectives for this project are:

To collect and reflect on the work and learning you have experienced in the course.

To develop further work and ideas that can be added to your Education portfolio.

To develop your ability to articulate your learning, experience, and understanding of best practice in language arts teaching.

To begin the foundations for an electronic portfolio that you will take with you into your career.

To explore the possibilities for using digital technology (hypertext, web publishing) in your future courses as a teaching and learning tool.

Pieces of the portfolio you will complete:

1]Course autobiography: self-reflection on your work and self-assessment of your learning this term, including concrete reflection on your practicum experiences—what you encountered and learned. [approximately 2-3 pages]

2]Professional autobiography: Beliefs About Teaching/Learning. See the education department description for rubric and requirements. Use your learning and experiences this term as a foundation for your discussion of the issues that are required for that essay; make concrete connections to both reading and experiences to ground your essay. [2-4 pages]

3]Lessons: Collect (and perhaps connect) your lessons and units from the course, from your field experience. Provide clean (and as necessary, revised) versions of the plans. You may also use this section to provide artifacts for the INTASC standards (as required in portfolio check #2)—but that is optional.

4]Professional Reading: A bibliography of key texts (articles and books) in your study of language arts [at least 5] and some texts you plan/want to read [2-3] for future study. Your readings from the course should be included here.

5]Electronic Resources: Annotated list of hyperlinks/web resources that you have consulted and evaluated and would use in your future courses [at this point, your portfolio should have at least 3]. The annotation should be a 1-2 sentence identification of the site (title, if given) and what it offers.

6]A home page. In older terms, this would be called a cover. In the digital realm, the home page is the starting point (where you provide the links) and the end point (where the reader returns). Make your entry into your portfolio as creative and representative of who you are as a teacher as you can.

Format:

You will be turning this in to me in an electronic version. I would like you to begin to think of this portfolio as a hypertext in process—the hypertext where your learning experiences as a student of the language arts intersect with your ongoing experiences as a teacher of the language arts. Begin to experiment with the creativity of the portfolio and the ways that digital media can represent and enhance the experience of learning: you can use Word, you might also begin to explore front page or other web publishing programs. You might also think of this as a course web page in progress—a place that your students will go as you guide them in inquiry and research as well as reading and writing.

Finally, you can think of this as a model for a version of a learning portfolio (or final project) that you might have your students experience and use for the purpose of assessment.

Assessment:

I will assess your portfolio by focusing on three areas: the strength of the learning and reflectiveness you display; the thoroughness of the work it contains and represents; the creative potential for language arts teaching you display. This project will count for approximately 25% of your final grade.

During your final exam period, you will publish your portfolio to the class and assess those of your peers. Prior to that, you will also have a final conference with me that will be modeled along the lines of an interview (much like the interview for admit to the Education program).

In terms of a ‘grade,’ you can think of this final assessment translating into these terms.

A: Hire this candidate; excellent and impressive work, clear and thoughtful articulation of ideas and practice, ready and able to make a difference in the classroom.

B: Consider this candidate for hire; strong and consistent work and mostly clear articulation of ideas and practice, is on the way to becoming a good teacher, with continued effort.

C: Reservations about hiring the candidate; work and learning and articulation are proficient, but doesn’t stand out from other candidates; will keep you in mind for openings in the future.

D: Do not hire at this point; needs a good deal more work and learning and articulation of practice and ideas; suggest a thorough revision of portfolio before coming back for another interview.

Due Date:

Monday May 8 by noon (email your web address to me)

Final Conference:

As part of my final assessment and evaluation of your work and progress this term, we will have a final conference (scheduled with me in advance). Think of this as a combined conference/interview in which you share your portfolio with me, discuss and articulate your understanding of language arts pedagogy, your field experiences, negotiate your grade (by way of assessing your own performance and what you want and need to keep working on as you go forward). With that in mind, prepare to have or do the following for the conference:

--self-reflection and self-assessment of your course performance and practicum experience; negotiate with me a final evaluation (based on assessment rubric above, and others used during the course)

--key ideas and concepts you have learned from the course (relating to readings, ncte and ncate objectives, language arts best practice)

--portfolio of your work (your final project)

--what you want and need to do next as you head towards student teaching: what do you need and want to work on?