5 Things to Include in Your Teaching Portfolio

It's that time of year!  If you're planning to make a strategic teaching career move, or just start a new adventure, you're probably thinking about what you need to do to land a great new job.

It was about this time two years ago when I was knee deep in a job hunt and beginning my moving plans.  It was only January/February, but new job postings were just beginning to appear and my new state certification needed to be finalized, and we had already turned in our letter of intent for the next school year.

One thing I learned from the whole experience: I should be keeping my teaching portfolio up to date. Heck, I didn't even have a teaching portfolio put together before I started preparing to send my resume out.  So even if you aren't looking for a new job right now, it's important to update that professional portfolio at least once a year!  (I say this and it's been two years so you know, do your thing).  Keep in mind- it's a portfolio, not a scrapbook!


The great thing about professional portfolios, is you don't have a page limit.  I mean, don't put together a 500 page portfolio because that's ridiculous...but you aren't limited in length the same way a resume can be limiting.  It's the middle ground between a resume and writing a short book about your career.

I skipped the binder and went straight to printing and binding my own book together.  I didn't want tabs and page protectors- I wanted it to look more professional.  While it's not the easiest to update the physical book, I figure I won't be printing it every time I update anyway, since the file is on my computer.  However, it IS easy to leave with my interviewer(s) if necessary, and I don't have to feel bad about it.  Plus, I could email it if it was ever necessary, and I can't do that with a binder.



1.  A Personal Letter
Don't forget a personal letter from you, complete with a school picture (might as well use those somewhere, right?).  Keep it focused and uniquely you.  You want to make an impression, not sound like everyone else.  Play up your strengths.  Now is the time for a get-to-know-you and a little humble-brag.

2.  The Nitty Gritty:  Cover letter, resume, vital information
Obviously, right?  Include a copy of your cover letter and resume, as well as contact information,  education qualifications (B.S., M.S.Ed., etc.), and certification.

3. Educational Philosophy and Career Goals
It's important to know what you want out of your career and how you approach teaching in your classroom.  If nothing else, this is excellent reflection for you to do ahead of any interview.  If you include it in your portfolio, you can easily access it during any interview or leave it for your future employer to read through.  Keep it simple and to the point.  No one is going to include this in their nighttime reading ritual.

4. Professional Development
Make a list.  Check it twice.  Look back at your paperwork.  Depending on the opportunities in your school or district, this can be lengthy.  If it shows your training or experience, then include it!

5. Your Classroom
There is no better way to get a feel for your teaching approach than to get a sneak peak inside your classroom.  Administrators pick up on a TON of small things around the room that lend insight to your management, organization, and enthusiasm for teaching through pictures.


Here's an example from my portfolio table of contents:

The great thing about this is that I can keep a big cumulative portfolio (more of a curriculum vitae) for my own records, plus a smaller one that I can update and take with me if I am interviewing somewhere.  

Once again, I've been curating a professional development Pinterest board that has all kinds of good stuff (and growing!) included- if you want ideas for curriculum vitae, resume help, ideas for developing your own teaching philosophy, or even just what a portfolio looks like, check out the board!

Follow Miss B.'s board PD on Pinterest.

            

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How Not to be Terrible About Student Birthdays

...I'm terrible at student birthdays.  I even blogged about it last year.   I don't mean to be.   It's not on purpose.  I just get caught up in everything else and then suddenly at the end of the day a student says "Today was so-and-so's birthday!" and I'm all "I KNOW!!! Happy birthday to them!  Let's...sing...right now!"  Luckily I have a plan in place.

This year I am going to be great at student birthdays.  I am.

Here are my tips for not being a birthday flake:

1. PREP all birthday "stuff" ahead of time- classroom display, student cards, student gifts (if you do that), and have a plan for what you do on student birthdays.  My classroom display is the Birthday Hall of Fame, where I have monthly cards and I put these "vintage" frames underneath each month with student pictures.  I make student name plates with their name and birthday underneath.   Then I put together my student birthday cards and student gifts (more on that at the bottom).  Be sure to write student birthdays on your planner or calendar.

 

2. ORGANIZE cards from the teacher or other materials in birthday order, so the next birthday is always on top.  PRO TIP:  Write the birthday in the upper corner so it's easy to see and remember.  If you're really on top of things, place the half birthdays in their correct location based on when they will be celebrated in school.  This way the next birthday is always at the top of your card pile.

3. ASSIGN student helpers to be in charge of birthdays.  I have these students put the Birthday Monkey (it's a monkey, it sings, it's all around distracting) on the student's desk, place the birthday sign next to that child's picture, and most importantly, remind me.

4. KNOW your school's policy on treats.  Or just birthdays in general.  My school does not allow them.  Treats that is.  They do allow birthdays.  I love my school.

5. CELEBRATE!  With a birthday monkey (or whatever you do for birthdays!) on their desk, a card ready with a nice corner bookmark (see below!), sing a song or do what you do to make birthdays special!  I like to have a Paper Party- I cut construction paper in four pieces (I try to use scraps in the work room before I cut regular paper because I really don't care if they are straight or perfect rectangles) and each student decorates one card for the birthday child.  The I hole punch one corner of each and put them all together on a ring.  PAPER PARTY!

When I student taught, one of my cooperating teachers always played the Beatles "Birthday", so sometimes we do that now, too.  {I kind of love this version}

The best part is, all of this only takes about 10-15 minutes, so it's not a super time sucker at school.  Excellent!


Student Cards + Gifts
This is what I've been working on prepping this week.  Well, more than just this, but I got this all ready and prepped.  Names written, dates on them, corner bookmarks folded/glued/placed on cards.  Everything in order.

I make my students corner bookmarks as their "gift".  They are easy.  They are inexpensive.  My students use them all year.  It is still thoughtful.  Here's what I do.  {These bookmarks, cards, and the poster set is from the RTL store here or using the link above}

Start with your template (it's really just a square with two triangles off the sides), then follow these picture steps to make your bookmark corners!

DONE!  How do you celebrate student birthdays??


Also, don't forget the TpT Sale on August 3/4!  The RTL Store will be 20% off of everything, for a total of 28% off when you use the code BTS15 at checkout!  Start making that wish list!

            

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New {free} Resources Page on RTL

In between summer adventures, I have these few chunks of time when I really want to buckle down and get some things on order for the new school year.  One of those things is having a catch all for the websites I love.  Do you have websites you love to use, and then you forget about them?  I will go on a website binge and then a few months later try to rack my brain for that same website and I can't remember it.  Drives me crazy!

Other times I feel like I've exhausted what I have off the top of my head and I'm looking for something that will provide a student a great challenge, or another resource to meet an entire standard, or something I can toss up on the active board as a new guided math activity, or a resource that will make my life easier, make learning better, etc.  I hate when I have that moment of "I know I've come across something that could be helpful, but I'm not sure where it is right now..."

I've tried lots of different ways to organize these websites and resources, from websites that organize them for me, to making a running list in my Google Drive, but honestly, signing into something is not what I want to do when I need a quick reminder.  I like Symbaloo for my students, but I don't love it for me.  Often times I pin these on my Pinterest boards, but sometimes the pins don't lead exactly where I want them and it gets tricky (for instance, it takes me to a blog with the link- which I love, but not during the school day or frankly any time I'm wanting to find a webpage quickly) OR I don't want to hop on my Pinterest account at school.  Then I figured if I'm looking for resources that I love, maybe other teachers are looking for them as well, so I decided on creating a catch all on my own blog.  That way it's useful to me, plus I'm sharing!  

So you may notice a new(ish) little tab at the top of the RTL blog.

This tab will take you to a list of subjects or teacher topics, and you can choose which topic you are looking for.  Then there's a list of websites I love to use or keep in my teacher toolbox of ideas and possibilities.  These tabs do not have links to products, but rather to online resources available.

I love free resources, and if I don't have to recreate the wheel, that's even better, so most of the resources I like to are FREE (although some may need a member account, but still free).  There are a few that I like that do have paid subscriptions, and I'm sure to mention that in my description.

I hope to keep this as an ongoing list of active links as new resources become available or are discovered.  If you ever find a dead link- let me know!

Do you see anything missing?  This is new and I'm just beginning to build these resources pages.  I'm happy to add resources that other teachers love in order to build a bigger-badder-better idea vault for all.  You can leave a message on this blog post, or just email me at realteacherslearn@gmail.com.

I'm super excited about it and I hope it's useful for you and your classroom!

            

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Guiding Reading during Guided Reading (Part 1)

Since I've upgraded my personal computer, I've had the extreme privilege of moving all of my pictures from one computer to the next, and as a result, have spent much of my time reorganizing them.  This also gave me a chance to see all the pictures I've taken for posts I haven't posted.

Let's get right to it then.

Guided reading.  This year I'm doing a guided reading and conferring combo meal plan.  For me, it looks like this (in a perfect world where time is no barrier and schedules are perfect):
1-2 weeks: Guided reading groups
1-2 weeks: Teacher/Student conferring

I take some quick notes on my students during/after meeting with guided reading groups and I will also take a week (usually two) in between re-grouping to meet with each student to confer about the book he/she is currently reading "for fun" (or in our case, for "stamina practice").  I can share more about conferring some time, but I'm focusing on Guided Reading for now...

I like to keep my guided reading time as simple as possible, meaning as little prep as possible for me. I do this by doing a few things:

1. Having the tools available every time
2. Keeping the same activity/skill for each group regardless of text level
3. Go-to skill lessons for last minute or early finishing groups (AKA The Binder) {More on this in PART 2- coming soon}
4. Documentation...dun dun dunnnn {PART 3...coming later than soon}

If I have all these things set up at the beginning of the year (and I do), then the only thing to plan/prep for guided reading groups is choosing books and choosing a skill/end result or activity.


The Tools

First, whisper phones.  I know I teach fourth grade, but I still love them- and so do the kids!  When students are back meeting with me, they are required to read in their "soft voice"- just above a whisper so that I can take turns listening in to each of them throughout the reading.  Most of the time, they don't find this distracting at all, but a few can be self conscious about it (it is odd, after all), so I hand them a whisper phone so that they can hear themselves more clearly.  Some of the kids like to use them for their independent reading at other times throughout the day as well.

Watch for them to go on sale- these were on sale for $2 each at the beginning of the year, so I stocked up while I could, and it saved me from taping piping together to make my own.

Teacher Note: Wash these.  We wipe them down often because there's a lot of heavy breathing going on when the kids are talking in them!  ...that sounds weird, but you know what I mean!

Up next, colored guided reading strips.  These are awesome tools for those kiddos with dyslexia or dysgraphia.  I also like to use them with my lower readers or ADHD to help stay focused.  I have all different colors to use at the guided reading table, or if a student needs/wants one to use on their own, I have a bunch of extra blue strips.

As you can see, I stock up on these as well, and they can get a bit pricey.  I picked these up at the USToy (Oriental Trading) at a tent sale, and they were $.50/dozen (yesss)...so I bought them all.  I have a lot.

Activity/Skills

I like to keep my prep to a minimum, so things are pretty simple in guided reading groups.  My school has a leveled book library, so I lucked out there- books are easy to get and levels are a breeze to locate.  I try to know the skill we are working on before I choose book so that I can cater to our needs in the classroom with book choice.

Generally, I keep the actual activity the same for each group.  The books are leveled, and I can level my instruction, so I stick to one overall goal or assignment regardless of group.

For example, we were working on summarizing, so over the course of a few weeks I broke down our problem/solution and story map and put together summaries in each group.  Everyone had the same physical product, but was working with text at their own level.

For these particular summarizing lessons, we did the problem and solution on gold paper (those were separate days), and then three steps taken to solve the problem (also all different days), to put together in one five sentence(ish) summery.

Finally, sticky notes.  I am completely addicted to them for a lot of reasons.  1) they are cross curricular, 2) kids love using them, 3) they are easy to use and quick to reference, 4) they can be reposted or pulled out of books to put other learning tools- posters, summaries, etc. together.

I could go on, but I won't.

Almost every time we sit down as a small group, we have our whisper phones, reading strips, and post it note guides ready and available to begin reading.  A lot of teachers use post it notes, and for good reason- they are great for focusing reading and reading with a purpose.  For this purpose, I made my own Good Readers Guided Reading Sticky Note Cards- I have different cards depending on which skill we are working on.  For example, if we are doing text features, then I pull the text feature sticky note cards out, plaster some sticky notes to the bottom and let the kids know which features we are focusing on- sometimes it's just a couple and sometimes it's all of them- depending on skill level and student ability.  I pair this with my Good Readers Flip Chart and we are off and running.

I love this system!  It is so easy for me to pull and focus our reading for the day.  Some of my students even grab sticky notes to use during other parts of the day in order to focus their reading.  Love that!!!

Now that I've written all this I'm thinking "gosh I really should pull some GR books so that when I come back from spring break I'm reading to rock and roll."  Add it to the list...

            

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Prep This, Please! Putting Classroom Volunteers to Work

I'm the first to admit I don't use parent volunteers a whole lot.  Sometimes I feel bad about it.  I just am skeptical of having parents come in and work with kiddos.  Mostly because I'm a control freak.  But I also get a bit concerned about confidentiality things with my students.  I enjoy doing my own bulletin boards.  I like things organized and I like to know where I put them.

I like control.

But we do have a bunch of middle school and high school students who need service hours and I absolutely love having them pop in my classroom to help out.

Sometimes I know my helpers are coming ahead of time and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I just plain forget and they show up.  So I have a list of helpful things for them to prep or work on for me.  None of which are on any timetable and are just a way for me to stay ahead of the game and to make my teacher life easier one day in the future when I have a last minute idea or am less that prepared*.    *that never happens, right?

Our district does this cool class for high school seniors where they have a few weeks of class, and then are set up with another classroom teacher in the district and the rest of their class time is spent in our room.  So every day she comes to my class for her class.  She has a few assignments she has to get done (read to the class, make a bulletin board, teach a mini lesson, etc.) but for the most part she is just there to jump in and help out!  It's awesome!  But yesterday for a solid 45 minutes she couldn't be in our classroom (I had a special guest + 15 other teachers + all my usual students in there already...) so I had a table all set up of things to do for her.  So while our class was busy in the classroom, she was working on putting folders together, folding paper, and stickering cards for me... I felt like I was the world's greatest multitasker even though I wasn't doing the work.

She's my regular, but I have other students pop in from time to time to help out.  Here are a few things I like to have my volunteers work on.

1. Put sticker labels on card sets:  I always have at least one set of vocab cards or scoot games or other card sets lying around just waiting to be sticker coded and ready to be completed.  I have a pretty organized system for this, but I have my stickers ready for any volunteer who may pop in.

2. Fold big construction paper in half: I use construction paper folders constantly, so I am that teacher that grabs a class set of each color to hoard in her classroom.  Please fold all of these in half.  Yes, all of them.

3. Take anything off of a wall: This whole wall.  Have at it!

4. Prep foldables: I probably don't even have a project in mind for a certain foldable yet, but having them prepped and ready for when I do decide to jump headfirst into an activity is really awesome.  Helpers are fantastic at cutting, folding, or stapling.  Plus, it doesn't have to be perfect because the kids won't notice or care.

5. Put folders together: I have writing folders that are prepped for each writing unit, so having volunteers put these together for me saves me a bunch of time.  Then they're just miraculously ready when I need them!

6. Cut things I don't care about (I care.  But I don't care.  Ya know?). Anything that doesn't take a paper cutter (I'm a stickler, I tell ya!  No one chopping off their finger under my watch!) is fair game for my volunteers.  If you can cut it with scissors, it probably isn't something that's going to bother me if it's a bit crooked at times.

7. Separate and staple book orders: I actually really like doing this myself because I love book orders, but sometimes time is money, my friends, and this saves me time!  I tend to send home a stack of book orders at a time, so having someone separate and staple is a huge time saver.  My helpers are super at putting these suckers together.  This goes for anything else that I plan on sending home now or in the near future.









I have a bunch of other things I may have my helpers do, but these are my "go-to" projects.  Do you have class volunteers?  Anything you like to have them work on?

            

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