Materials for Your Teaching Portfolio

Over the course of your teacher preparation program, you will create and collect many materials that you may wish to include in your teacher portfolio as evidence of your knowledge, skills, and attitudes for teaching. These materials should show that you meet the standards for new teachers developed by INTASC, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium. The INTASC standards are available at http://www.ccsso.org/intascst.html#draft.

To help you begin developing materials for your portfolio, complete one or more of the following activities.

1. Create your own code of ethics, or respond to the NEA Code of Ethics printed in this chapter of your textbook. List what you feel your responsibilities as a teacher are to your students, their families, your colleagues and administrators, and your community. What rights do you have as a teacher, or what expectations from students, families, colleagues, administrators and the public? (INTASC Principle 9)
2. Obtain, if possible, a standard teaching contract from a district where you hope to teach. Use it to prepare a list of questions about the terms of employment in that district, or prepare such a list based on your current knowledge and concerns. Keep the list handy, with your portfolio materials, to update and use when you begin to search for a teaching position. (INTASC Principle 10)
3. Research laws, curriculum standards, and guidelines that affect the behavior of students and teachers in one or more communities where you hope to teach. Look for information related to one of the legal topics discussed in this chapter of your textbook. For example, does the state or district allow corporal punishment? What are the guidelines for student newspapers in middle and high schools? What are the customs or rules related to religious activities on school grounds, at school-related events, or during school? Is there a list of approved curriculum materials that may limit or guide teachers choices in the classroom? Use your research, as well as information from your text to draft a simple, clear set of guidelines designed to help teachers in the district understand this area of the law and comply with relevant legal rulings. (INTASC Principles 7, 9, and 10)