Secondary Educator Licensure Portfolio

On November 3rd, Abby Adams and I taught an 80 minute lesson on the self.  We spent about three weeks preparing a thorough lesson plan which utilized a handful of technologies to engage students in a critical inquiry about what constitutes identity.  Through developing our lesson, we ended up using PollEverywhere, AnkiApp, Quizlet, Google sheets, Google docs, Google slides, Google sites, and Apple TV.  If staying organized and keeping on track was difficult, then learning the technology was near impossible for me.  In order to effectively teach the lesson we prepared, we had to learn how to use each of these technologies. As somebody who has long contemplated the benefits of a Luddite lifestyle, this necessity presented adversity to me. Several times technological elements of our lesson frustrated me, but in time I figured out how to use these tools. While our lesson was well structured, it was our technology that really took the session to another level.  In hi...

On a placement day in early October, I had a very striking experience.  Adam's class was discussing the Paralympics and the question of how people come to be disabled arose.  While many of the responses for how were logical to the class (disease, birth defects, surgery, etc), the students had a hard time understanding how a person born healthy would lose a limb.  In giving an example, the teacher asked Adam to explain about IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The teacher's direct approach in asking for personal experience and reflection on such a sensitive subject shocked me.  To someone new to this classroom, the direct personal interrogation (as it appeared) was extremely unprofessional.  Especially seeing as IEDs are often traumatic, a teacher asking about a student's experience with such a deadly instrument is a serious breach of privacy in the student-teacher relationship.  Thankfully I was able to quietly withhold this initial analysis because the ...

As a future educator, it has recently come to my attention that I need to be wary of laws governing the privacy of individuals that educators must adhere to.  The primary legislation in regards to student privacy is the FERPA (Family Educational Rights Protection Act).  Among other implications, this act requires educators to carefully safeguard private personal information of students and their families.  For this reason, I cannot refer to any student I work with by their true name.

While Adam engages with verbal English fairly confidently and consistently, his written skills suggest that he is at a slightly lower level with written language.  In class, we are able to actively engage in conversations that use reflection and critical analysis.  He can effectively support arguments and make connections verbally. In speaking, he is confident and uses language with very few grammatical errors. This activity suggests he is likely in the expanding stage of verbal language development.  However, his expression of ideas with written words is not as fluent.  His writing contains more errors than his spoken English. Elements such as subject verb agreement come easier for him when he speaks than when he writes. Because of this, his writing skills seems closer to the developing stage.  With this understanding, I have realized that while Adam may need more assistance in proof reading his writing, I can challenge him to engage deeper verbally in developi...