As an educator, participating in the reflective process is one of the most important things we can do. If we don't assess where we succeeded and where we fell short we cannot grow as teachers. By using the reflective process we can ensure we check our biases, our level of responsiveness to student needs, and the connections we drew to student's lives. In this post I will work to assess the state of my portfolio, using the rubric to the left I will look at the quality of evidence represented.
Description and Analysis: As my portfolio stands today I would say my descriptions are in between developing and at standard. While they address what is in the photos, they do not look at what I learned as an educator and how that photos shows it. I have grouped analysis with the description section as I believe they are very connected. If I work to bulk up my descriptions, I believe I can achieve a more detailed analysis.
Reflection: I believe I am between "at standard" and "quality" with my reflections as I have ensure all have photos, the blog posts address a specific question and they have a succinct yet important discussion.
Range of Learners/Clients: Throughout the portfolio I work to ensure I represent a range of learners. I show a range of age groups from elementary school students to adults, a diverse set of cultures, and a diverse set of learning techniques from visuals, to speech, to written work.
Range of Settings and Display: I believe I have achieved "at standard" with this section as I represent a great variety of settings including the garden, community events, the lab classroom, and outside/on trails. I can push myself towards the "quality" section by adding more content to the description of each place. This will help to represent my flexibility when it comes to the learners needs.
Active Learning: For the section, I see myself landing on "at standard" as I work to reflect upon my teaching through my blog posts and show evidence of learner reflection through the student work. To help further my portfolio in this area I will work to include the teacher feedback as well as peer feedback.
Using Evidence to Make Decisions: In this portion of my portfolio I also believe I have achieved "developing" because I have yet to show reflection with my assessments aside from the few blog posts I have included. Throughout the next week I hope to further develop my captions to include reflection and more description of what I learned.