The purpose of your education portfolio is to capture moments of professional growth generated from your program.
The purpose of this course is to help you author a moment of professional growth into your portfolio.
The purpose of this task in the course is to help you align the reasons why you identified your moment of professional growth as an educator with the standards associated with your field.
So far in this course you have selected a moment of professional growth that is meaningful to you and your development as a teacher, but now is the time to identify why the moment is important to the field. You will do this by aligning the reasons that you articulated in your reflection with the standards for your field. In the previous task, I used the following example:
The first unit I ever created was a collaborative unit plan where myself and three peers created a single unit plan to be taught in a classroom with some students with identified learning needs. This unit plan was important to me and my development as an educator because it was the first time that I had thought about the needs, abilities, and interests of the students before I thought about how I wanted to teach the lesson. It was my first time putting the students first!
Also, this moment was important because I needed to lean on the experience and expertise of my peers because some of them knew the students better and some of them knew the content better. If I would have tried to do all the tasks that we needed to do to be successful (which is how I had previously operated when doing group work) then the unit, and the students, would have suffered. I learned a valuable lesson in the power of collaboration with others in order to be a better teacher.
In the example above, I identified and explained two reasons for why the moment was important to me and my growth as an educator.
One reason I selected this moment is because it was the first time I was trying to create instruction that was designed for my students, rather then adapted to my teaching preferences. The other reason is it was the first time I had collaborated with peers to create a better experience for my students.
These two reasons may align with multiple standards from multiple sets of standards. Looking through each set of standards I will consider if the growth I described in my reflection aligns with the standards that are listed in my portfolio. If I select a standard that aligns with my growth I need to explain why with a simple sentence that connects the reflection with the standard.
In the end this one moment of professional growth may align with multiple standards from multiple sets of standards.
To align the reasons why you identified your moment of professional growth as an educator with the standards associated with your field, execute the following steps:
Open your Chrome web browser.
Log in to Google Drive using your @go.olemiss.edu email address.
Open your Education Portfolio.
Locate the the artifact page you worked with in the previous task.
Open your Education Portfolio in another tab in your Chrome web browser and navigate to the "Standards" page.
Select the InTASC Standards (if you are Teacher Education student) or the NELP Standards (if you are an Educational Leadership student).
Consider your first reason for why the identified moment of professional growth was important to you and your growth as an educator (the first paragraph in your reflection). Read the set of standards and consider which standard aligns with that reason (see the video for more directions).
Copy over the name of the standard to your artifact page under the "Justification" heading.
Repeat for each paragraph of your reflection/reason why the identified moment of professional growth was important to you and your growth as an educator.
Under each standard write a one sentence justification statement that describes why the artifact is evidence of the identified standard. Use a sentence like, "This artifact is evidence of growth in this standard because...."
Repeat steps 7-10 for the other sets of standards that in your portfolio.
You have aligned the reasons why you identified your moment of professional growth as an educator with the standards associated with your field.