Section One:

Teacher Candidate Introduction to the Elementary Portfolio Project

Introduction to the Portfolio Project
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. This quote by
Aristotle is one of my favorites for the world of education. It reminds me that although there is a
vast amount of content knowledge that we must know to be effective teachers, we also need to be
empathetic and caring for our students. My past experiences have made me who I am today, and
Ive become a more caring and thoughtful person and educator because of them. Throughout this
portfolio project, I will show evidence of how I accomplish being both content oriented as well
as caring in my teaching, I will go through my past experiences that have led me to become the
educator I am today, and I will showcase my current skills as said educator. My passion for
education will truly shine in this portfolio and readers will see it sparkle in the artifacts I have
chosen to include. These artifacts, found in Section Three, will showcase my abilities to plan,
instruct, and assess my students as a way to prepare me to become an educator in New York
State.
Portfolio Overview and Rationale
Throughout the course of this portfolio, I will be including some of my best work from
my schooling at Medaille College as well as other experiences. In Section Two, I will discuss my
past experiences with both my own schooling and my experiences in the field of education. I will
explain where my love for teaching began and how I got to where I am today.
In Section Three, you will find that I have included several examples of evidence. These
artifacts have been gathered from not only my time at Medaille, but also my time working as a
Teacher Assistant at a local childcare center. My time with the children I have worked with there

has helped to shape me into the teacher I am today and I hold them very near and dear to my
heart.
In Section Four, I will discuss how I am able to align both myself, and my work with
both the curriculum and professional standards required in New York State. I will go into how I
follow the NYS Code of Ethics for Educators as well as TEAC/CAEP claims. I will show my
knowledge of content, as well as my professionalism, and how I will differentiate instruction in
my future classrooms.
Throughout my time at Medaille, I have learned just how important it is to reflect on my
teaching. If there is something Im doing that is just now reaching my students, I need to be able
to reflect upon that and come up with a whole new plan for how I can get my point across in a
way that theyll understand. In Section Five, I will reflect back on my experiences at Medaille
with regards to this portfolio project, my field experiences, and my readiness to become a teacher
in New York State.
I will be including a mock interview video in Section Six. This video will show that I am
truly ready to become an educator and that I can handle myself professionally in an interview
setting. By including the video with my Weebly website, I am also able to showcase my abilities
with technology that I have acquired during my schooling at Medaille as well.
Theorists and Experts in the Field of Education
One of my favorite experts in the field of education is Mr. Ron Clark, the author of The
Essential 55 (Clark, 2003, p. 142.). Throughout the book, Mr. Clark goes through the different
rules and procedures he has for his students and why they pertain to their everyday lives. Rule
number 50 has stuck with me for some time now and it states, Be positive and enjoy life. Some

things just arent worth getting upset over. Keep everything in perspective and focus on the good
in your life. (p. 142) This reminds me that you dont always get everything right on the first try.
You have to find the good in what youve done and focus on that. Did I do something
great today to help reach my students? If Im truly focusing on the good, then I am also
reflecting on what methods work best for my students. When Im reflecting, I can reformulate
my plans to fit their specific needs and make each day better and better for them and their
learning environment. Mr. Clarks rules dont just focus on content knowledge, they focus on
character development and aid in educating the heart as Aristotle would say. Mr. Clarks
students highly benefitted from his methods and became well-rounded individuals in retrospect.
Piaget helped to develop what we now know as constructivism. When we build upon
prior knowledge and scaffold information, we are able to help children to explore and
experiment and as teachers we are able to individualize instruction so children can learn at
their own level of readiness. (Ornstein, Levine, and Gutek, 2011, p. 120) When we are able to
help our students construct their knowledge, they are able to connect it to things they already
know, helping them to apply the information in the future. Piagets theory helped classrooms
around the world to focus more on how each child learns and change the classroom settings to
accommodate for that.
Lastly, the work of Doug Lemov has inspired me greatly. Teachers must be able to be
flexible for their students. If students arent quite grasping the concept at hand, a teacher needs to
be able to assess the situation, as well as come up with a new plan for help reach the students. In
Teach Like A Champion 2.0, Lemov includes a section called Plan for Error (Lemov, 2015, p.
60). He states, You know errors are coming. But foresight can help make them predictable and
can allow you to respond with adaptations within your lesson rather than deviations from it.

Thats far easier to manage in the moment. When reading this passage, I realized that I had
originally thought that if my students werent grasping a concept, I would have to come up with
a whole new lesson on the spot. After thinking this through, it made more sense. When teaching
your class, it is so much easier to make up different examples to get your point across in a
different way than it is to deviate from your lesson and take it a different direction entirely. In
realizing this, it helped me to formulate my lesson plans more effectively as shown with some of
my artifacts in Section Three.
Conclusion
In order to be successful in this field, I must be able to be content oriented, warm,
flexible, and so many more things. In order to be those things, I must reflect on who I am as a
human being as well as my teaching practices. When in doubt I have many theorists and experts
to look to for advice when I need it and continuing to read their work is an inspiration to me
every day. Future sections of this portfolio project will showcase that what Ive learned from not
only these theorists and experts have to say, but also from those who have been my professors
and colleagues during my time at Medaille. Reflection is and always will be an important part of
my teaching practices and I hope to show that throughout the remainder of this project.