My Teaching Portfolio Patricia Diaz

Teachin Practice Elmer Jorge Guardado. Mat.

Casa 03/03/2014

Teaching Portfolio.

Introduction In order to understand and to reflect on our practice we need to have a document that support our work, this is where a teaching portfolio is assembled. Teachers see the use of a portfolio like an opportunity to improve their daily performance in the classrooms but sometime they do not have a clear idea of how to do it or why to do it, if that is the case this paper will help to the readers to understand the soul of a real teaching portfolio and to believe that the well documentation of the teaching practice will ensure the porpoise for what it is been created. This paper is structured in the following sections: Introduction What is a Teaching Portfolio? Self-Evaluation and Reflection Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio? How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio? Teaching Responsibilities Statement of Teaching Philosophy Teaching Methodology, Strategies, Objectives

Teaching Portfolio. What is a Teaching Portfolio? When you start a teaching portfolio you need to have a clear idea of what it is a teaching portfolio, according to William Cerbin from Washington University, a portfolio or dossier is a collection of material that depicts the nature and quality of an individuals teaching and students learning. Portfolios are structured deliberately to reflect particular aspects of teaching and learning, theyarenottrunksfullofteachingartifactsandmemorabilia. At its best a portfolio documents an instructors approach to teaching, combining specific evidence of instructional strategies and effectiveness in a way that captures teaching intellectual substance and complexity. (Cerbin, 1993) It is not just the compilations of documents and information is the body of your teaching practice that contain your soul the way you are, the activities and methodology are resume in this documents. A portfolio is essential in your development because provides you an overview of your teaching practices, gives you the opportunity to evaluate yourself what kind of teacher are you, although is a document for yourself in occasion you can use it for a different aspects as your boss evaluation. It provides you a summary of your achievements. There are two main uses for a portfolio one of them is a summative evaluation; this use focus on the fact of judge at the end of a curse the achievements of the goals that you as a teacher states; the second use refers to the formative evaluation, you use it in this way along the course to evaluate your weakness, to reflect your teaching practice and to improve in the areas where you are falling. (Seldin, 1997)

Self-Evaluation and Reflection Every act has a consequence, in the same way in teaching, during my teaching practice I deal with the fact that I have no idea of how to teach, of course I knew the theory of it, but doing it was even more challenging, even now I have troubles with the conceptualization of some techniques terms and the lack of experience in the new ways of teaching, such as IT, a new term for me that I did not know during my years of my first steps in the teaching process, the adaptation of IT in my lesson plan have become in a problem because sometime I dont have the necessary tools in my teaching environment, at ITCA FEPADE. Exist a big problem because the place has few technological tools. This sometime failS in my wellness of use technology in my classes. A difference experience is in other job at the Academia Internacional, where I have the necessity to teach in a different way because the students have a different perspective about the language and they have more resources.

Teaching Portfolio. You have to take a look of your principle as a teacher and ask yourself in the actions that you do are for your own ego or because you believe in students, the seven principles for good teaching, mark the path that we follow in the process of teaching, this principles are the based for a good practices, the knowledge and reproduction will guarantee the acceptance and respect of our students and colleagues, and will leave us for the road of a good performances. (Ehrmann, 1987) Colleague can offer support and advice. If you do a reflection in group will be a tool to help to assess your work in a different perspective (Kaplan, 1998) Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio? The creation of something always has a propose, so is the teaching portfolio, the creation of it responds to the necessity that the teacher will have, it can help you to reflect about your teaching philosophy, methods and approach that we use in the classroom, a perfect tool to detect if my performance as a teacher is the adequate, for my practice identifying the areas where I can improve; and also I can use it as a professional document for academic promotion or any application for a job, this will work as a letter or presentation where I can show myself who I am as a teacher, besides this I can use as a reference for a preview experience, the activities, and all the thing related to behavior and classes planning, if a had a problem in my current practice that had happened before my portfolio can provide the solution for this situation. (Kaplan, 1998) How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio? The structure of a teaching portfolio will depend of the teacher and the porpoise of it, when you design your portfolio you have to ask yourself in the section that are necessary for you, for instance, some might think that the activities evidences are not necessary or the lesson plan, and even some might think that the syllabus is not necessary, this will depend on the teaching philosophy too. To avoid these problems, there is a common structure that we can use: A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J.
Introduction What is a Teaching Portfolio? Self-Evaluation and Reflection Why do I need a Teaching Portfolio? How should I structure my Teaching Portfolio? Teaching Responsibilities Statement of Teaching Philosophy Teaching Methodology, Strategies, Objectives Description of Course Material (Syllabi, Handouts, Assignments) Efforts to Improve Teaching
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Teaching Portfolio. Conferences/Workshops Attended Curricular Revisions Innovations in Teaching Student Ratings on Diagnostic Questions Products of Teaching (Evidence of Student Learning) Teaching Goals: Short-and Long Term Appendices

K. L. M. N.

Teaching Responsibilities The result of an activity wont be always the one we expect, the over use of a technique leads to students fall in a cycle of continued reproduction, so is necessary the feedback in our practice, something the approaches are not develop in the way they suppose to be, this will affect the result that we wait in our students, as teacher is our job to discover what fails and what works in the classrooms, and have the conviction of change the thing that does not work in order to obtain the best of our students, in this case we can use as example the over use of repetition drills without meaning. When we start a course the first thing we set are the guideline that we are going to follow it is our responsibility to achieve it, but in the case we can do it, the self reflection will be determinate the success of it. Statement of Teaching Philosophy

When you start with your teaching portfolio you have to answer yourself four fundamental questions: 1) Why do you teach? 2) What do you teach? 3) How do you teach? 4) How do you measure your effectiveness? (Center) 1. Why do you teach? At the beginning I could not answer this question because I did not know the answer, through the year I realize that I do not see myself doing something else. I have heard people saying that teaching is the simplest thing to do, an easy job, they could not be more wrong. When you see the childrens face telling you, you are the best teacher I ever have, I am never going to forget you, those simple words change your life, there is where you can see all your goal and your handwork finally pay, the satisfaction that teaching brings to my life is immeasurable, every month you receive the payment for your job, but there are so many reasons why you stay in the classroom year after year, day after day fighting against the system, trying to put your piece in the world, transforming life, that is way eventhough I am not rich, I continue because I can touch life and like an artist I can mold people attitudes through my example, I hope twenty years later to see my students like professional and as good people.
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Teaching Portfolio.

2. What do you teach? My objective is that my student acquires a second language, no matter the place (public or private) and no matter the level where I teach, that is my main goal professionally speaking, if we see our students few years later we would feel proud of what they are accomplish, because somehow we influence in their life. Teachers not only teach academic topics, teachers also teach for life, modals, behavior and other thing outside of the curricula, based on my experience I cover the topics required by the government but I also try to give a little bit more of me, I try to show my values, my principles so students can learn it indirectly in that way they grow academically and humanely. 3. How to teach? I try to teach in the way I would it like when I was in the school, in an easy and funny way, learning things that I really need, I still thinking that I never use X to buy for example, or why did I write so many sentences or translate so many paragraph in my English classes. Nowadays I try that my classes be active that students bring to real life what they have learned in the classroom, in order to do this the methodology I use is a collage of methods, the one I use the most is the communicative approach with this method I try to present the topics in situations where students can be involve. My teaching practice is flexible I even ask students what they want to learn and how they will like to do the assignments and exams, in that way student felt compromise to study because the evaluation will be in the way they feel comfortable. The use of technology is something that I recently apply in my classes, this makes the interaction between the students and me more close because I can monitoring them when I am not with them, I try to teach in a way that student learning will be significant. 4. How do you measure your effectiveness? There are two ways of learning one is when you are aware of it and the other when you learn without knowing, the result can be measure by a scale from one to ten or by the reach that students achieve. I think you can measure your effectiveness in the way that students do not need you anymore, in the moment where they do the assignments and activities by themselves and when they accomplish the entire goal that you present at the beginning of the course.

Teaching Portfolio. Teaching Methodology, Strategies, Objectives During the planning of the lesson as a teacher you considerer different aspects to achieve our goal, we spent time thinking on the methodology, method, techniques, activities, etc that works best for our porpoise, but to do a good planning we need to know and considered what approaches to use in the classroom, for example, in my class the approach I use the most is the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) also know as Communicative Approach, developed for Robert Lang MD, in the early 1970s; it is centered on human adaptation to emotionally-charged events with full appreciation, in which we are consciously and unconsciously aware of our learning. This approach emphasizes in the interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study, and the material is presented in context. (Mitchell, (1994)) Among the classroom activities I use are Role play, Interviews, Games, Pair work, Debates, etc. technique that student and me enjoy because allows to the group to express our thoughts being the main propose to communicate in real situations, with these technique students prepare to communicate in real life like going to the mall or discuss about different topics, but how do I develop this methods well in first place at the Academia Internacional when I plan a debate is always about the current topic in the class, for example, if we are discussing about politics the debate will be develop in that order, I divide the class and I assign roles, another thing I like to play is with the imagination, sometimes in the classroom we are politics, writers, detectives, president, live in another country or the witness of a crime in this way I prepare to my student to react and to respond if they are involve in any case. The activities are development mostly in group but the feedback and assessment are always individually, I promote the participation of all the student asking questions and encouraging them to related what happened to them during the week According with my experience, other approach that I use in several occasions is Total Physical Response (TPR) developed by James Asher in 1960 based on the theory that memory is enhanced through association with physical movement, (Tamura, 2006) in that way I take the advantage of the energy of children and I canalize that energy on teaching them, because as the theory claims, next time they perform an action they will remember the vocabulary discussed on the class. Using TPR in my class allows to students to be awake and learning by playing. The same happens with adults, the stress of their life sometimes can be more affected by the anxiety of be learning a second language but with good techniques which allows them to be in movement the learning process will be more effective. When I use this approach I not only use for imperatives I mixed with other approaches in order to combine the abilities that students have, by experiences children respond well to this method.
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Teaching Portfolio.

Bibliografa
Center, T. T. (s.f.). teachingcenter. Recuperado el 2014, de http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/About/ProgramsforGraduateStudentsandPostd ocs/resources/Pages/Writing-a-Teaching-Philosophy-Statement.aspx#.UxPF8N5MrU Cerbin, W. (1993). Teaching and Learning Bulletin. Recuperado el 1 de marzo de 2014, de http://www.washington.edu/teaching/files/2012/12/TeachingPortfolio.pdf Ehrmann, C. a. (1987). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. Kaplan, M. (1998). the Center for Researchers on Learning and Teaching. Recuperado el 1 de Marzo de 2014, de http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no11.pdf Mitchell, R. ((1994)). "The communicative approach to language teaching". Seldin, P. (1997). The Teaching Portfolio: A practical guide to improved performance and promotion/tenure decisions. . Anker Publishing. Staker, H. a. (2012). innosighinstitute.org. Obtenido de http://www.innosightinstitute.org/innosight/wpcontent/uploads/2012/05/Classifying-K-12-blended-learning2.pdf Tamura, E. T. (2006). Concepts on The Methodology of Teaching English. The Economic Journal of Takasaki City University of Economics , pg. pp.169188.