Ashley Folden

Final Portfolio
Reflection for Teaching
The portfolio section Teaching includes a wide range of artifacts. It is the largest portion

of the final portfolio. Within this section, the artifacts include lesson plan from student teaching,

the edited teaching video from student teaching with self-analysis, the sample of assessments,

and the TPA. Each artifact is unique and has many parts. The lesson plans I included from

students teaching were reading, technology, and one of my choice. For reading, I chose a whole

weekly unit from both my first student teaching placement with first grade and then another

weekly unit which is recent and from fourth grade. Both reading units are detailed and go from

day one to day five or the beginning of the story and assignments to the test day. The technology

lesson I provided was a math lesson from my first lesson where the students watched and

enjoyed a video as well as watched problems on the smart board. I felt the use of technology or

the video helped the students to have a better understanding and remember the concept of greater

than, less than, and equal to. For the lesson of my choice, I chose a weekly unit I taught in my

Walk to Intervention group for first and second graders. I had the highest-level group, and I

planned a unit on polar bears with comprehension and vocabulary strategies, activities, and

games that all the students enjoyed. The next portion of teaching is my edited teaching video

with a self-analysis. My teaching video process was very rocky. However, my video

demonstrates a realistic classroom setting and how anything and everything can happen. The

video demonstrates lessons I taught with the TPA on sound. There are three sections of the video

each being five minutes in length. If I could change anything about the videoing process I would

have more instruction for the videographer, I would have been more prepared with the setup and

supplies, and I would have recorded a lesson when I was not sick. The next portion in the

teaching section is samples of assessment. I included a wide range of sample assessments in

slideshows which included both grade levels that I have student taught in. I first included reading

comprehension assessments. The reading compression assessments are slips of papers with test

questions that I give the fourth graders each week in groups. They are to answer the questions

and then report and present the questions to the class. This assessment allowed for me to see

what they had learned throughout the week with their weekly story, as well as collaborate as a

group, and better prepared them for their core reading assessment. The next assessment I

included was writing assessments from a vocabulary writing activity that I assigned to my fourth

graders. They were to write a paragraph of eight to nine sentence and use five of their vocabulary

words correctly. This assessment allowed for me to see their understanding of their vocabulary

words, while also seeing what improvements we needed to make in their writing abilities to

prepare them for state testing. Also, I included vocabulary assessments which I used the Frayer

graphic organizer where the students practice using their vocabulary words, finding the antonym

and synonym, as well as putting the word in a sentence, defining the word, and lastly illustrating

the word. This is an assessment I performed with the class in fourth grade on a regular weekly

basis because I feel the knowledge of vocabulary is something they will need for testing as well

as the rest of their educational years. Following reading assessments, I included math

assessments. The math assessments I included were from both of my student teaching

placements. The first-grade assessment is a simple addition and subtraction math drill that the

students took so that I could see how much I need to practice and go over addition and

subtraction strategies. The fourth-grade math assessment was a review on division which is a

concept the students struggle with and is a standard that we are focusing on in preparation for

STAR testing. The last category of assessment I included is science. The science assessment was

a visual assessment where the students were given instructions to place skittles in a sequence
around a plate, and they added warm water to create a rainbow. The students then wrote about

the process they used and their observations/reactions. It was so much fun for the students and

the visual of the experiment helped to explain the concept of rainbows well letting the students

enjoy their education. The last portion of the teaching section is the TPA. The TPA is by far the

hardest task I have completed in my college career. I feel one of the most challenging parts for

me was understanding all the directions which still trying to incorporate both grades in my spilt

classroom placement. I enjoyed creating my unit on science, but the assessments for the TPA was

what I struggled with the most. I wish I would have done a better job with my pre-and post-

assessment. I feel that I did well in general on the TPA, but there are a lot of things I would have

done differently if I would have had more time and instruction. However, those are valuable

lessons that I will take into my teaching career. Overall, the Teaching section in the final

portfolio is the largest and the most valuable. I feel that this portion of the portfolio summarizes

my student teaching experience and I feel proud of the work I have accomplished as well as all

of the learning opportunities both good and bad I have gained.