Hello! Today I wanted to share what I keep inside my teaching portfolio that I take with me to interviews. Just to share a little bit of background about me: after I graduated, I taught Head Start preschool for 3 years. Just last year I started my current {dream} job in Kindergarten. I love my current job, but it was a bit of a process to get there with a handful of interviews along the way.
Why have a teaching portfolio?
Over the past couple of years, I had some interviews and meet and greets in different local districts. The majority of interviewers did not ask to see my portfolio, but I was able to refer to it when answering specific interview questions. When creating your portfolio, think about what questions you may be asked in an interview and how you could use a portfolio to support your answer. For example, if you are asked how you communicate with parents, you could refer to your portfolio and show them the newsletter you send home and other documentation you use to communicate with parents.
If you are interviewing for your first teaching job, use items that you created in your internship.
I choose to only have 5 sections to my portfolio (introduction, sample lesson plan, classroom management, communication and evaluations.) You can certainly include more sections if you choose, but I like to keep mine on the simple side. I use a divider to section each area and page protectors to put each document in. These are the sections I included:
Introduction
- Teaching Philosophy or introduction page
- Resume
- Letters of Recommendations
- Teaching Certificate
- This would be a great place to add any other certificates you have. I have my CDA (Child Development Associate) and my Certificate of Completion for Right Response. First Aid and CPR Card.
Sample Lesson Plan
- In this section I keep a copy of my weekly lesson plan I used when I taught Preschool. I also keep a step by step science lesson plan that I wrote for my CDA. Be sure it include what standards your lesson teaches.
- If you have a sample of student work that would be a great thing to include too.
- Also include any methods you use for student understanding such as a project or a test.
Classroom Management
If you don’t already have documents made that support this category, I would simply skip this section.
- Behavior Matrix- I created this matrix for one of my goals with my instructional coach. The top row shows our 3 rules and the left column is each main part of our day. For each box I filled in what the expectations are for that rule during that particular part of the day.
- Reward system
- Any behavior documentation form you use
- Individual behavior plans you have created (make sure names are not included)
Communication
- Parent Newsletter
- Any other forms of communication you plan to have with parents. (In preschool I sent home a weekly progress report that started an achievement their student accomplished for the week and something that they are working on)
- Sample assessment documentation- Below is a picture of the assessment documentation I kept for each student. I used a different color pen each marking period to mark what their student knew. It was a quick and easy way to show student progress during conferences. Do you have any documentation you show parents during conferences?
Evaluations
In this section I keep my most recent evaluations. If you have not had a teaching job before, this would be a great place to put your observations from your internship.
- End of the year evaluation (This shows my effectiveness rating)
- Basic observation form (This one was done by my supervisor. It shows my positive to negative interactions, opportunities to respond and disruptions.
- PQA Summary- For the year that I taught 4-year old preschool, I had a PQA observation (Preschool Program Quality Assessment)
The best advice I have for setting up a portfolio is to think about what you could show an interviewer that would support what you are telling them. What things have you done that set you apart from other candidates.
Is there anything else you include in your teaching portfolio?
Check out my other teaching posts: