MY TEACHING PORTFOLIO

TEACHING PRACTICE I
MILTON MARTINEZ 3/3/2014

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PART OF TEACHING IS WHE YOU INFLUENCE POSITIVELY SOMEONE ELSES LIFE MILTON MARTINEZ

Teaching Portfolio INTRODUCTION

The Teaching Portfolio, sometimes called a Teacher Dossier, is a compilation of subjective (personal, reflective) assessments as well as objective (quantitative, independent) assessment of ones teaching. (courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca). Is used for let teachers know how they have been performing their teaching, in that way, teachers can see the progress they have had, how many mistakes they have made, and also, they are able to modify and update their teaching portfolio in order to keep themselves as updated teachers, even though they do not change a lower version of a book for a newer one, teachers can take out and take in resources in order to change what they teach according to the needs of the groups they are teaching to. The questions that we are going to take in consideration in this paper are: What is a Teaching Portfolio? Self-Evaluation and Reflection. Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio? How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio? What are the teachers responsibilities? What is your Statement of Teaching Philosophy? Teaching Methodology, Strategies and Objectives. Conclusion. Teaching Portfolio can be used with two different goals, it can be used as a formative tool to help the instructor develop, improve and strengthen their teaching strategies. And it can be also used as a summative tool for use by supervisors, departments and educational institutions.

(courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca). This is very helpful, because besides the wellknown use for a teaching portfolio as a tool for improving teaching style, it can be

Teaching Portfolio used as a tool for evaluating teachers, and know how they are performing their teaching, their methodology, strategies, etc. There are some teachers that maybe are a kind of skeptical about using a teaching portfolio, but those types of teachers are the ones that do not want to improve and resign themselves to keep performing an old school teaching, instead of update them and get a commitment to improve and show what a teacher is.

WHAT IS A TEACHING PORTFOLIO? A teaching portfolio is a collection of documents that together provide a record of: The ideas and objectives that inform your teaching. The courses you teach or you are prepared to teach.. The methods you use. Your effectiveness as a teacher. How you assess and improve your teaching. (Louis) A teaching portfolio has the documents that support the ideas of your current teaching performing and the courses that you are prepared to teach in the future, your methodology and your teaching record, how you have improved your teaching performing through your teaching practice and the objectives that you have set up to yourself in order to have commitment to teach in a better way every day.

If you are a graduate student or a postdoctoral fellow preparing a teaching portfolio for the academic job market, the portfolio will necessarily be both forward and backward looking with examples of courses that you have taught or

Teaching Portfolio have assisted in and from courses that you are prepared to teach in the future. A teaching portfolio has to be presented in a polish and clear format, you have to know that you have to keep updating your teaching portfolio during your whole career because that is the base and supporting information for your teaching, you will not teach the same things that you taught the semester in the next one, because even though it is the same subject, teaching has to be applied according to the needs of the group of students that you have. A teaching portfolio is not a holding place for your teaching materials, it contains the assignments and other materials that best illustrates your teaching approach and methodology. (Louis)

SELF-EVALUATION AND REFLECTION Self-evaluation What I can say about my teaching auto-evaluation is that I am not an experienced teacher, because I have just a few hours of teaching, but those few hours were enough to make me open my eyes and realize how hard teaching is. I know now that teaching is not as easy as I thought it would be, not only because of the commitment that I have to make with myself; I have to make a commitment with my students in order to be a good teacher with the characteristics needed for performing this role. Because a good teacher wants the students to learn, is motivated to excel as a teacher, there is intrinsic motivation when teach instead of having a departmental obligation, enthusiastic, energetic, excited, flexible, good listener. (Johnston).

While my teaching performing, what I noticed was that I did not have any idea of how to teach a new language, but through the time I learnt that if I want to be a good teacher, I must make a commitment with myself first, to learn the things

Teaching Portfolio I suppose to know in order to share them with my students and be prepared to answer any question to them. Second, I have to make a commitment with my students; because I have to find out the way they learn the most and get use to their learning style, because nobody learns in the way that someone else does it.

As I said at the very beginning, I do not have enough teaching experience, but during the few months of my social service, I could realize about a lot of beautiful things that teaching gives to teachers, some of them are being a model for your students, I do not say that I want to become a teacher because I want to be admired, because that is not my goal, but during my little experience I could notice how a teacher can push up or push down a student, and did my best in order to push them up to make them think about the learning process of a new language and also about what they expect from themselves in the future, because a teacher has to inspire their students not only to learn more, but to do their best in every single thing they do.

Reflection Teaching is not a game nor an easy job, it is the most frail job in the world, because every professional will need of a teacher during the preparation of their careers, because teaching is the only career that produces other careers, a person cannot need a doctor during his life nor of computing engineer, but everyone will need a teacher. We all are teachers in somehow, but we are based on our own experiences and that is something that we, as teachers, academic teachers, need for performing a good teaching role, experience, I know that I will not become in an incredible teacher in one year, it will take much more, but it depends on my commitments and principles as teacher, because the more engage I am with my teaching performing, the better teacher I will be.

Teaching Portfolio

There is something very important to remember when teaching and it is something that was said by a much known person, Albert Einstein, I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. (goodreads.com) Teachers are guides on the road of learning, we share knowledge, but it is up to the students to accept what we share with them, and of course, it depends on how we motivate them too, because a guide has to show the path and convince people to follow him in order to achieve a goal.

WHY DO I NEED A TEACHER PORTFOLIO? A teaching portfolio is a useful tool that can help you to: Develop, clarify and reflect on your teaching philosophy, methods and approaches. Present teaching credentials for hiring and promotion in an academic position. Document professional development in teaching. Identify areas for improvement. Prepare for the interview process. (Louis) A teaching portfolio is very useful, it contains all our teaching history and it can show how good we are by the compilation of the subjects we have taught and the ones we are prepared to show, it shows the way we as teacher, think about our role and it is a very helpful part of the hiring process, because almost always, institutions besides asking for a C.V. they ask for adding a teaching portfolio too, but not all institutions ask for it, that is why we have to ask about it first.

Teaching Portfolio A teaching portfolio contains a summary of your teaching performing. The portfolio is usually written as a scholarly reflection of your teaching and the principles that you have used to inform your approach to academic work. The document will highlight any changes you have made to your teaching on the basis of reading the educational literature, student and peer evaluations, research you have conducted on learning and teaching and participation in professional development programs. Teaching portfolio facilitates the process of teaching because it involves three aspects that are important and essential for teaching, they are Plan, Act, Evaluate and Improve. (gcrisp01, 2005). This kind of document, shows what you have done and how you have done it, not only the improvement that you have had during your career, also the changes that you have made to the things you have taught in the same course but in different periods of time.

HOW SHOULD I STRUCTURE MY TEACHING PORTFOLIO? A teaching portfolio can be made with two objectives:

Having compilation of the courses you have taught in order to you to be aware of the mistakes you have done and the improvement you have had.

For being evaluated for a new job or a new job promotion. (courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca)

The structure of your teaching portfolio might differ significantly depending upon the purpose for which you intend to use it. In some circumstances the structure of your portfolio might be dictated by institutional policy.

(staff.mq.edu.au, 2005). We must ask if the institution we want to apply for, wants a teaching portfolio, and if the institution does need it, we have to ask is they have

Teaching Portfolio a special structure for a teaching portfolio or it is up to the teacher who is applying to the job.

The structure of a teaching portfolio is based on is the following:

Teaching Responsibilities. Statement of Teaching Philosophy. Teaching Methodology, Strategies and Objectives. Description of Course Materials (Syllabi, assignments, handouts). Efforts to Improve Teaching: Conferences/Workshops Attended. Curricular Revisions. Innovations in Teaching.

Students Ratings on Diagnostic Questions. Products of Teaching (Evidence of Student Learning). Teaching Goals: Short-Long Term. Appendices. (staff.mq.edu.au, 2005)

All the elements above are important in a teaching portfolio, because they demonstrate how you have been performing you role as teacher. Your teaching portfolio can have some restrictions depending of what you need it for, if you need it for applying for promotion, the institution will restrict you to make shorter the content of the portfolio. You have to be know the objectives and goals of the institution you will apply for, in order to let them know that your teaching philosophy and goals are compatible with theirs and work on the same road.

Teaching Portfolio A teaching portfolio has to show how important is for teachers to focus on the students learning, because student is the reason of the existence of teacher, and there must be an interest for the improvement of pupils; it has to be presented into our teaching portfolio in order to remind us what we have done good and what mistakes we have done and make us think how am I going to change this in order to do it good?. Appendices are indispensable because there is where we demonstrate what resources we have been using during our teaching performance.

WHAT ARE THE TEACHERS RESPONSIBILITIES? There are a lot of teachers who do not engage with the process of teaching, and they forget about what they have to do besides going into a classroom and give a lecture to the students. A teacher has a lot of things to worry about and deal with, and it is important to mention them and make them clear. The responsibilities a teacher has are the following:

Classroom Management and Organization: a classroom reveals telltale signs of its users style. Typically, a well-ordered classroom has various instructional organizers such as rules posted on walls. The furniture arrangement and classroom display usually shows how a teacher uses the space. Planning and Organization for Instruction: some teachers plan at home and some teachers do it at school/college. Regardless the place where teachers prepare and organize their classes, the result of that planning is seen into the effective teaching given into the classroom. Implementing Instructions: teachers are like orchestra directors, because teachers have to give the instructions to follow during the class, but not only

Teaching Portfolio into the classroom, if a student asks something out the classroom, the teacher has the moral commandment to answer. Monitoring Students Progress and Potential: a teacher has to notice about the troubles a student or a group of students have for understanding something, therefore, the teacher has to focus on solving that problem in order to those students to understand a lecture. Professionalism: a professional teacher maintains accurate records and reflects on teaching, personally and peers. A professional teacher is honest and sincere. Preferences are not allowed because all students have to be treated the same. (Development, 2007)

All those responsibilities have to be part of teachers every day, because those are characteristics that make an effective teacher to impact and achieve the objectives that have been set up. But there are some responsibilities that teachers have and are not paid, those are to take tests and grade them at home, prepare classes and lesson plans and also, nowadays, technology has helped to students and teachers to keep in touch by social networks like facebook and twitter, in that way, students can ask something to their teacher out of school/college and teachers can give them instructions and assign tasks for them. That is to be engaged with teaching.

WHAT IS YOUR STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY? By setting a statement of teaching philosophy, I have to answer the following questions:

Teaching Portfolio Why do I teach? I teach because I like it, that is a very common answer, and I do not want to say that because I like it, I want to say I teach because I love it, because it inspires passion in me and make me feel good, not because I feel or think that I am more intelligent than someone else, but, because I know that by sharing the few knowledge that I have learnt I can help to improve someone elses life. I want to teach because I know that I can help to shape good people and good professionals for our society. I have been impacted by several kind of teachers, good teachers and bad teachers, but I have learned only good things from them, what I learned from good teacher is that they feel passion for what they do, they feel teaching, instead of taking it as a job, they enjoy their profession and I want to be like them, I want to feel teaching as what it is, a beautiful way to live my day by day. And what I have learned from bad teacher is to avoid being a lazy one, because a lazy teacher does not serve for anything but for destroying dreams, and I want to be a dream builder for my students.

A lot of people can say hey, teaching is a job for being starving! And what I say about that is that I know that teaching is a bad-paid job, but I like it, and I have seen how teachers enjoy their job, and I want to do what my teachers have done for me, shape my character and change my mind, make me grow up and realize that I am capable to do something in a good way. That is why I want to teach, to help students to believe in themselves and show them that they are capable to do big things and inspire them to achieve their goals. And when time had gone for me, see those people who were my students and proudly say, I had an important part of his/her victory, and be happy because I will know I did something good during my life, that is priceless.

Teaching Portfolio What do I teach?

I teach not only what is in the curricula, I teach self-confidence and values, because I will not keep the idea of a teacher who goes to into a classroom, starts to speak until the end of the class and when the class finishes goes out and keeps away from the humanity part of teaching, because this is career that requires human sense and interest about what is going on in the classroom, that is why a good teacher has to be a good listener, because a teacher, sometimes acts as a friend or an adviser for students. I do not want to teach selfishness nor mediocrity, I want to teach how do more than we actually think we can do, and push students to their limit in order to make them realize that they are capable to achieve their goals if they work hard.

What are your goals as a teacher? I have set a bunch of goals as a teacher. My goals as teacher can be divided into academic goals and moral goals, both of them are related but I have separated them in that way because both are complement of the other. I want to shape good professionals for our community, intellectually prepared, but morally shaped too, because that is part of what I know as teaching, to create good values into our students, and that is one of my principle goals and maybe a resume of all my goals in a short and a long term. My intention and dream is to be a successful teacher, who inspires students and shape good human beings for society. Also, I want to be capable to show that the role that I play into the mentorship of my students is a role that leaves marks on them and remind a teacher who shown them that they could have done it better, and they did it.

Teaching Portfolio How do I use technology in your teaching? A teacher has to be an updated person; otherwise, teaching will be traditional and obviously boring. I will use technology in my teaching by using blogs, videos, test websites, social networks, apps, and more resources that I can find in order to improve my teaching performance. Technology has had a really heavy impact in teaching by the implementation of virtual classes, blended learning and e-learning. I will use both of them during my teaching. For example, I can create a facebook account or a group for working with my students, explain them things they do not understand, assign them tasks and give them information about the subject. I can assign them to do a test online in order to them to practice determined vocabulary or structures and so on.

If a teacher does not get into technology in order to take advantage of it for teaching, that teacher will be useful because students pay more attention when a class is technologic and interactive. For example, a discussion forum is a very good way to develop an evaluation, and it is interesting for students, besides they share ideas though. Technology is a very useful tool to teach.

TEACHING METHODOLOGY, STRATEGIES AND OBJECTIVES. The methodology that I will use for my teaching practice is based on the communicative approach, because the Ministry of Education has set it in that way in this country (MINED, 2008), and honestly I like this approach because I like the idea to teach by expecting communicative skills to be developed. I believe that a language is best learnt when it is practiced instead of learning grammatical rules only. I can say that the method that I best work with is the Audio-Lingual Method, because I can speak in the target language and use the L1 in order to give

Teaching Portfolio instructions, but I will mix this method with TPR and Dessugestopedia Method in order make a more interactive and dynamic class, also to let to the students to be comfortable with the class. The Direct Method is an important one for me too, as the GTM as well, because there will be groups in which I will be able to use only the target language. The most important methods for my teaching practice will be ADL, DSM, DM, TPR and CLL. This mixed of methods will help me during my teaching practice by making an interactive creative and interesting class by using techniques like chain drill, using commands to direct behavior, small group task, role play, and more. (Larsen-Freeman, 2004)

By

achieving

the

objectives

of

this

teaching

practices

(develop

communicative skills in students), the method above will be mixed and their techniques too. The use of visual aids in Audio-Lingual Method will be useful because the human eye is very sensible and easy to distract, and visual aids will catch their attention, those visual aids can be pictures or videos and this technique can be mixed with the CLL by working in groups and make a little competence in order to make then guess the name or action that an image represents.

CONCLUSION As a conclusion of this paper, I can say that a teaching portfolio is a very useful tool for teachers, and it can be considered as an obligation to create one, because it contains our teaching history and it can be our mirror to make a selfevaluation and notice about what we have been failing and what we have been doing good. We have to be clear, punctual and selective with the information we put into our portfolio. And something to remember is to keep it updated, because there is when we realize about the real me and see the improvement we can have, if we are conscious and auto-critics.

Teaching Portfolio

Bibliography
staff.mq.edu.au. (2005, September 14). Retrieved march 3, 2014, from staff.mq.edu.au: staff.mq.edu.au/public/download.jsp?id=102870 courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2014, from courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca: http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/FACDEV101/ESG5300/3.Teaching%20Portfolio/Te aching_Portfolios.htm Development, A. f. (2007). ascd.org. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from ascd.org: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/105156/chapters/Section-II@-TeacherResponsibilities-and-Teacher-Behaviors.aspx gcrisp01. (2005, June 7). eduacation.adelaide.edu.au. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from eduacation.adelaide.edu.au: https://education.adelaide.edu.au/downloads/teachingportfolio.pdf goodreads.com. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2014, from goodreads.com: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/teaching Johnston. (n.d.). ame.pitt.edu. Retrieved March 2, 2014, from ame.pitt.edu: http://www.ame.pitt.edu/documents/Johnston_GoodTeacher.pdf Larsen-Freeman, D. (2004). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. New York: Oxford. Louis, W. U. (n.d.). The Teaching Center. Retrieved March 2, 2014, from The Teaching Center: http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/About/ProgramsforGraduateStudentsandPostdocs/resou rces/Pages/Creating-a-Teaching-Portfolio.aspx#heading_1 MINED. (2008, July 7). mined.gob.sv. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from mined.gob.sv: http://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php/component/jdownloads/view.download/1476.html