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. Use the Internet or library to follow local news stories about the activities of a local school board over the course of a year or two. (Consider choosing the school board in a district where you hope to teach.) If possible, attend or obtain minutes of a meeting of the school board, or gather other information about their activities, such as an annual report. Summarize the key challenges faced by the school board and the impact that the board's activities seem to have on the day-to-day activities of local teachers. List ways that teachers can affect the work of the school board and ways the school board can affect the work of teachers. (INTASC Principles 7 and 10).
2. Attend or obtain the minutes of a meeting of the parent-teacher organization of a school at the level you hope to teach. Based on what you learn about the activities of this organization, prepare a list of suggestions for teachers at that school, of ways that the parent-teacher organization provides support for teaching and ways that teachers can work effectively with students' families. (INTASC Principles 7 and 10).
3. Research grant opportunities for teachers of the discipline and age of students you hope to teach. (Grants are gifts of money provided by government, charitable, or corporate organizations to support educational or other activities.) Some Internet sites you can use to start your research include the U.S. Department of Education website, eSchool News, for announcements of grants for technology, Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators list of grants for educators, and SchoolGrants. Obtain the guidelines and application materials for one or more grant opportunities that interest you. Fill them out, developing a project idea, if necessary, to practice and demonstrate the skills needed to obtain extra funding for your classes. If possible, ask a professor or teacher with grant writing experience to critique your efforts. (INTASC Principle 10)