You will present your portfolio to the class during finals week

Your portfolio represents who you are as a prospective teacher. Its compilation will be useful during your field experience this semester and student teaching. It will help you to chronicle your growth and development as a teacher and go a long way towards meeting your Senior Portfolio requirement. Divide your portfolio into the sections described below. Fuller descriptions of specific components follow

Write a 1-2 page essay articulating

• What you believe is worth learning and what is worth teaching to students
• The teaching methods you expect to emphasize and why
• Your expectations for your own performance and that of your students.

Planning is essential to good teaching, and in this course, you will

• Learn the essential components of a directed lesson
• Write instructional objectives
• Complete eight comprehensive lesson plans and one curricular unit plan on a theme that can be taught over a three to four week period.

One of the most challenging skills to develop is the ability to create fair and comprehensive forms of assessment that demonstrate what students have learned (summative / evaluative assessment), or need to learn (formative / planning assessment). Select a specific math and science lesson from above and create four tests that will address important concepts and skills whose mastery you believe should be measured. Your tests should include different ways of assessing subject matter and skill mastery: oral responses, essay, short answer, multiple choice, matching, true-false, fill-ins, etc. One of your tests should use non-formalized methods of determining student progress. Two of your tests should be constructed so as to test a student with special needs, including one with dialect differences or developmental speech challenges.

See the following:

Successful classroom discussions simply don’t happen; they are planned. In class, we will discuss the techniques that are most effective in enhancing classroom discussions and cooperative learning experiences. You will then be asked to create your own series of scripted questions on relevant topics and will be given an opportunity to lead a class discussion among your peers. In small groups, you will together develop a simulation exercise that will hypothetically involve your entire high school class. Your portfolio should include:

• questions and evaluation of a large group discussion (1-2 pages).
• directions for small group discussion (1 page).
• directions for a cooperative learning assignment (1 page).
• directions for a class simulation (to be completed in a small group, 2-3 pages)

Advanced placement course syllabi are available on line at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com. Select two of the course syllabi that are relevant to your discipline, and analyze them for consistency, bias, and relevance in the course goals, objectives, and content.

Explain how you believe you have grown and how you evaluate your own professional development at this time. Be sure to specifically describe your disciplinary expertise with respect to the Content Area Standards in Science and Mathematics (3 pages).