Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities
4b: Maintaining Accurate Records
In teaching, I believe in leading by example. Organization is a critical life skill that I believe I should exemplify and allow my students to practice. For their final essay, I organized a writing process with scaffolding, check-ins, and due dates along the way. This not only demonstrates my own organization in planning and following up on assignments, but it shows my successful efforts to help students organize their own work. For this freshman essay, my students needed to create annotated bibliographies, argument outlines, rough drafts, read their rough drafts to and receive critique from two peers, and then type their final draft. While this particular student struggled a little with correct MLA format, she wrote an extraordinary essay packet that testifies of the organization promoted in my classroom, and my methods accurately recording student assessments.
4d: Participating in a Professional Community
During my final semester of student teaching at Vallivue, the faculty was discussing new books to use in the upcoming school year. When asked about one of the suggested books, The Alchemist, I gave my opinion and discussed my experiences with the book. A colleague then asked me if I would be willing to write a review of the book to add to their list of teacher recommendations. This artifact is a copy of that review that I wrote and submitted to the English department. I believe this artifact shows my ability and willingness to engage in professional decisions in my campus community.
4f: Showing Professionalism
As I have mentioned in previous artifact entries, at the end of my student teaching year I was asked to be a long-term substitute for a resigned teacher. The event presented quite a challenge. When asked to fill this role, I was teaching a curriculum of my own design, and conducting a research project for my master's thesis. Entering this new classroom also meant developing two new curricula, with virtually no support from the previous teacher, and integrating into six new classes full of confused, frustrated students. I was able to fulfill this duty with grace and integrity, and received ample recognition and appreciation from my administrators. The artifact I have chosen is a simple email correspondence with my principal in which we briefly discuss my experiences in the class, as well as plans for me to meet with the IT department to set up an official account with the district, and for me to receive access to the online gradebook. While alone this artifact isn't much, with these background facts it does tell a greater story of my willingness to accept inconvenient responsibilities with tact and professionalism.