Section One: Teacher Candidate Introduction to the Elementary Portfolio Project

Introduction, Overview and Rationale

I believe that in order to be a good educator you have to be willing to be a life-long

learner, because the best teachers never stop their own learning as they continuously search to

discover new ideas and constantly reflect upon their practice. The most memorable teachers are

the ones who make that extra effort to ensure that every child feels welcome and continues to

improve themselves so that their students will benefit. The following elementary portfolio was

developed as a way to demonstrate my preparedness to not only be a professional educator but to

be a life-long learner that will continuously strive to be better and provide the best education for

all my students. Teaching requires an incredible amount of passion because each and every day it

is our job as educators to inspire and motivate our students to be their best and continue their

growth as individuals. My goal is that this portfolio will display my abilities as an educator, but

also show the passion I have for teaching.

Throughout the portfolio I will demonstrate my strengths as an educator through some of

my past work and also by discussing my past experience and how that has shaped my outlook on

education. The artifacts that I have included will demonstrate my abilities as an educator to

incorporate my vast understanding of the curriculum and the standards into the classroom when I

am planning, instructing and assessing my students. In addition, it will also highlight my ability

to accommodate for all types of learners and to consider the different cultures of my students

throughout my planning, instruction, and classroom management. As well the portfolio will

highlight me as an educator, but also display my willingness and desire to continue to improve

through professional development and collaboration. Overall, the portfolio will highlight my

accomplishments, abilities and traits that make me prepared to be an affective educator.

 This portfolio is a demonstration of being a reflective practitioner because it allows me to

reflect upon my experiences and knowledge and summarize myself as an educator. As I

discussed at the beginning, it is important as a teacher to reflect on what you have done because

it provides you with room to grow and improve. The portfolio also provides you the chance to

learn about me and my experience, beliefs and abilities as an educator.

Portfolio Development

This portfolio will be made up of six different sections that will each help to demonstrate

my background and my effectiveness as an educator. The first section, which is also the current

section you are reading, is the Teacher Candidate Introduction to the Elementary Portfolio

Project. This section will provide a brief introduction about me as an educator, provide and

outline for the remainder of the portfolio, and discuss my philosophy of education and how it

connections to expert theorists. This section will also address my preparedness to teach in the

field of education.

The second section will provide an in depth look at my background experiences that have

been contributing factors to me becoming an effective teacher. This section will lock at

education experience, work experience, school observations and classroom application, my

philosophy of education, and the development of my resume.

The third section will provide artifacts as pieces of evidence to support my competencies

in the area of planning, instruction, assessment, content knowledge, literacy skills, and

technology. The artifacts will be pieces of evidence pulled from my course work at Medaille and

will relate to the educational theories and experts. This section will also demonstrate my best

teaching practices, skills and classroom management.

 The fourth section, will display my knowledge of alignment to the curriculum as well as

the professional standards. This section will discuss how my professional development plan

aligns with the expectations and requirements from: Interstate New Teacher Assessment Support

Consortium Standards (INSTAC), NYS Code of Ethics for educators, Ontario Teacher Ethical

Standards, P-12 New York State Common Core Learning Standards, NYS Learning Standards,

Ontario Curriculum Expectation, Medaille College Division of Education TEAC/ CAEP Claims,

International Society for Technology Education (iste), International Literacy Standards (ILA),

and Council for Exceptional Children (CEC).

The fifth section, will demonstrate my abilities to be a reflective educator. In this section

I will reflect on my time in the teacher education program at Medaille and how it has helped me

to develop and learn important lessons about education and teaching. Here I will also reflect on

my experience of completing this portfolio and my readiness to become a teacher.

Lastly, the sixth section will be a teacher interview video that will showcase my work

and make connections to interview type questions through the use of the Weebly website. This

will also include a brief summary about reflecting on the Teacher interview video that I created.

Theories, Theorists, & Experts in the Field of Education

Throughout my course work at Medaille College I have learned about many different

educational theorists and experts who have had large influences on our education system and the

way we teach and learn today. It is important as an educator to understand the different theories

and to know where they came from and how they can be used. As I continue to reflect on myself

as an educator I can see close relations between my beliefs about education and some of the

theorists ideas. There are three major theorists whose work and ideas stand out for me and
closely align with my own development of my philosophy of education. Those theorists are John

Dewey, Harry Wong, and Jerome Bruner.

Firstly, John Dewey was a pragmatists who believed that learning should be done through

lived experiences because this way children would learn from a young age how to problem solve

(Ornstein et al., 2015, 172). The pragmatist theory that Dewey supported is one that I strongly

believe in because I think that students learn best when they are able to relate to topics and have

hands on experiences. Sometimes as educators we rely too much on content learning and it takes

away from the idea of students learning by experiencing. Dewey emphasized the idea that the

learning process was just as important as what was being learned, because once a student

developed the problem solving skills they would be able to apply it to many areas (Ornstein et

al., 2015, 172).

John Deweys theories relate closely with education today and the idea of culturally

responsive teaching because by teaching based on experience it allows students to bring

themselves into the classroom and learn through their interests and community. Deweys work

has had a huge influence on modern education because it has broken down some of the content

based learning and instead provided a chance for students to focus on the learning process and

development of essential skills that can be applied to different areas. Much like Dewey I think

that it is important to have what he called meaningful activity in the classroom because students

remember more and can relate more to experiences they have lived verses something they have

read about or watched a movie about (Ornstein et al., 2015, 173).

In addition to John Dewey, Jerome Bruner is another theorist who has had a profound

influence on education and the style of learning in the classroom. Bruner is most famously

known for introducing discovery learning as a theory of learning in 1960. Much like Dewey,
Bruner believed that through discovery students would be able to acquire a wide range of skills

and they would be learning by doing (Weibell, 2011). In Bruners book The Process of

Education he discussed the idea that students had to have a desire to learn and therefore they

needed to be stimulated by what they were learning about (Weibell, 2011). In addition, Bruner

believed that the role of structure in learning was fundamental and should be the focal point

rather than the mastery of facts or techniques (Weibeel, 2011). Therefore, Bruner was a

constructivist whose theories have also transformed our classrooms and can be linked to the

reasoning behind why so much emphasis is put on the learning structure.

Furthermore, another theorist who has had a large influence on education and more

specifically the classroom is Harry Wong. Wong is mostly known for his theories about

classroom management (Wong, Wong, Rogers, and Brooks, 2013, 60). Wong believed that in the

first two weeks of school the priority of the teacher should be organizing their classroom

management (Wong et al., 2013, 60). He referred to classroom management as a teacher most

useful tool and will be the determining factor in how well the students teach (Wong et al., 2013,

61). Wong has had a large influence on education because there is more of a focus now on

classroom management techniques and ways for teachers to manage their students. I think that

classroom management has become such an important element to teaching because there are so

many things going on in a classroom at once that if a teacher does not have a procedure for the

students the classroom can become over whelming. In addition, classroom management

techniques also provide students with responsibility and rules to follow which can help to teach

them important life skills.

Overall, these three theorists and many more have played a huge part in transforming

education over the years and they have all contributed largely to how we teach.
Conclusion

This portfolio and what is to follow provides a great display of my accomplishments as a

student here a Medaille, but also demonstrates the knowledge and abilities that I have that will

allow me to be an effective teacher. The portfolio project has also allowed me to reflect upon my

experiences and bring together everything that I have learned into one document that summarizes

me as an educator.