English
600,
Spring
2013
Assignment
for
Reflective
Teaching
Portfolio
Overview
Collect: As a teacher
committed to
growth and reflection, you have been collecting evidence of
your
progress, theoretical grounding, and informed
practice. You have
also been given ample opportunity to reflect on your class
readings and
classroom experience through WebBoard posts and class
discussions
throughout the year. You may have saved email to or
from your students that demonstrates some aspect of your
growth. Some
of you have also taught before, and may have saved artifacts
such as
class assignments and reflections, that
demonstrate your progress as a teacher.
Select: Consider all
these
documents and reflections as raw materials from which you
will select
the most appropriate for your electronic teaching
portfolio.
Decide which five to ten items best illustrate your growth
and
philosophy as a teacher, and create web pages for them (save
as web
page or copy/paste into a new web page). If you have
more than
ten items that you feel really belong in your electronic
portfolio, you
may use them. But be sure you have something to say
about each
item in your reflection.
Note: one artifact in the electronic teaching portfolio must
be your
draft syllabus for teaching next fall. For most of
you, this
class will be English 103. For those of you not
teaching in our
program next fall, you may design a syllabus for a writing
class you
think you will teach in the future. Please consult "First-Year
Composition
Syllabus
Requirements" as you design your syllabus.
Reflect: Then create
a webbed
overview reflection that links out to the various artifacts
and
comments. You might structure your overview as a loose
essay
charting your chronological growth before, during this year
of
teaching, and
predicted for next year, using hypertext links to your
evidence
when appropriate. Or you might create a "front page"
for your
portfolio, with a short list of links to reflection and
evidence on a
number of topics related to your teaching and learning about
teaching.
Note: approximately 500-1000 words of reflection must be a
rationale
for your draft syllabus. Based on your understanding
of
composition theory and practice through English 600 (and
other)
readings, discussion, and your experience as a teacher,
reflect on your
choices in at least some of the following areas: texts/
readings,
assignment sequence, activities, attendance and
participation policies,
revision/writing process, theme, portfolio pedagogy (or
not!), lab and
online assignments, etc. Please use the "Syllabus Ideas"
WebBoard conference to share ideas with class members.
Connect: Think about
sites
outside our English 600 class and your teaching that might
be helpful
to understanding your growth as a teacher. Are there
webbed
articles, online discussions, or other resources that have
informed
your philosophy and practice?
Project: Taking into
account
all of the above, what pattern or trajectory comes into
focus through
your reflection in the process of creating the electronic
teaching
portfolio? What kind of teacher do you envision
yourself
becoming in two, five, ten, or twenty-five years? What
steps will
you need to take to become that teacher?
Purpose and
Audience:
Consider this electronic portfolio as documentation of your
growth as a
teacher in English 600, and as a draft of a more
polished
teaching portfolio that you will be able to show to
prospective
employers in the future, after you finish your degree.
Consider
your class as one audience, but also compose with the
eventual goal of
including prospective employers and anyone
involved with and concerned about
the teaching of writing at the college level in your wider
audience.
Possible
topics
on which to reflect:
Consider any aspect of your teaching English 103 and 104,
your learning
in
English 600, or composition studies, theoretical or applied,
that
this semester of teaching and English 600 has made you think
about. Some
obvious but rich possibilities might include any items on
the list
below, and their relation to the objectives set forth in the
English
600 syllabus.
your
philosophy
of teaching
your
reactions
to the ideas presented in the class readings
your
perceptions
of your greatest successes and/or challenges over the
semester
your
approach
to any of the following, as demonstrated through artifacts
the writing process as a whole
prewriting
revision
style
teaching grammar/usage
teaching modes of discourse
the
usefulness of handbooks
the
role
of assigned readings in a
composition
class
the
role
of computers/Internet in a
composition
class
the
role
of web pages/electronic
portfolios in a composition class
peer-editing
pedagogies
conferencing
with
student
writers
evaluation
and
response
to
writing
leading
class
discussion
managing
group
work
Details: You
may
reflect in a personal narrative or a persuasive style, or
some
combination of the two.To
show your familiarity with composition pedagogy, please
make an effort
to use the assigned readings from our English 600 class to
ground your
observations. The conferences on the required
readings on
our ENGL 600 WebBoard would be great places to start
drafting your
reflections on our course texts. Additional
research
is permissible but not required; your own thoughts and
observations are
most important.
Duedates:
Draft for workshop discussion in English 600 class: April
22, 24, 26
Final: Post the URL of your
electronic teaching portfolio to the 600 Electronic Teaching
Portfolio
conference on WebBoard by 4:30 PM, Monday, May 13.
Feel free to
discuss
your ideas with any one of us and/or share a draft in
progress!
Last updated
on
April 4, 2013
by Michael
Day
E-mail
me!