Teaching Portfolio Milton Martinez IX Semester

8/12/2019 Teaching Portfolio Milton Martinez IX Semester

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MY TEACHING PORTFOLIOTEACHING PRACTICE I

MILTON MARTINEZ3/3/2014

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PART OF TEACHING IS WHE YOU INFLUENCEPOSITIVELY SOMEONE ELSES LIFE

MILTON MARTINEZ


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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 inresources 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 well-

known use for a teaching portfolio as a tool for improving teaching style, it can be


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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 keepperforming 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


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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, youwill 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 ofthe 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


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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 noticehow 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.


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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 basisof 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 thethings 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 beaware 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


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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.


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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 andwhat 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 signsof 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 andsome 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, becauseteachers have to give the instructions to follow during the class, but not only


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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 aboutthe troubles a student or a group of students have for understandingsomething, 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 andreflects 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:


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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 theirgoals 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.


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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 practicedetermined 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


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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 onlythe 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 (developcommunicative 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 self-

evaluation 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.


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Teaching Portfolio Milton Martinez IX Semester