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. Answer in more detail the question posed in this chapter of your textbook: Why teach? Here are some questions you might wish to include in your self-examination.
   • In addition to simply listing your motives for and against teaching, add some explanation, or perhaps rankings, of those motives.
   • Reflect on how and when you first felt a desire to become a teacher. How does your first calling compare to the reports from current teachers that are described in the textbook?
   • Get the opinions of friends, teachers, or family members, if you feel comfortable doing so at this point in your preparation, and analyze how their opinions compare to your own. Do any of their opinions about you becoming a teacher seem surprising or especially insightful? Why? (INTASC Principle 9)
2. Summarize your real-life experience with children of the age you hope to teach. If you have not had very much experience, research some of the possibilities for gaining experience suggested in this chapter of your textbook. Analyze how the experience that you have gained has contributed to your desire to work with students of this age. (INTASC Principle 9)