December 8, 2011 To Whom It May Concern: I would like to invite you to view my portfolio.

This is just a very small representation of what I have learned through the course of the past semester.

First, I have chosen to include an activity taken from an reading called Getting to know your students through Glyphs by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Marcia B. Imbeau. The Glyph activity was completely novel to me and turned out to be very useful in my own classroom. I am motivated to use this activity for several years to come.

Another piece that I have included was a revised lesson plan. The goal of lesson plans are to develop a lesson that has a clear purpose and assessment. Lesson plans will continue to play an important role in my teaching career. In order to accurately assess students learning it is essential that the lesson is well thought out.

The last piece that I have included in the portfolio is a revised rubric. I had not used rubrics on a regular basis prior to this course. I believed they were time consuming and unnecessary. Through this course I learned that rubrics serve several purposes in the classroom. Having clear expectations will only serve to make grading easier.

Over the course of this past semester I have learned about several different forms of assessment. In addition, the value of utilizing a variety of assessments in the classroom was reinforced. As a result of this of this course I will feel more comfortable

incorporating other forms of assessments into my lessons. Sincerely, Molly Lippitt

Glyphs

Reflection 1

The first class assignment that I have chosen to reflect upon is the Glyphs lesson. I had never heard of a Glyph prior to the assigned reading Getting to know your students through glyphs by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Marcia B. Imbeau. In the reading the authors explain that a student would take a drawn outline of a person and color the image based on a variety of criteria. The information collected was to serve as a visual representation of the student including basic criteria such as gender and information about the family to whether they prefer writing assignments or assignments where they can use art to express themselves. Since this is all done by coloring and marking the human outline the teacher is then left with a visual representation of the student and their preferred learning style. The teacher is then able to use this information when differentiating lesson plans. After reading about the Glyphs I decided to use this activity in three of my classes. The classes were all self-contained special education classes with five to eight students in each class. Each student has significant learning and/or cognitive delays. Some of the information I had already learned from previous years of teaching these students but I was able to learn more information from this project than any prior classroom discussion or activity. Through the Glyph activity I was able to learn information from the student directly about their preferences in learning activities, preferred method of demonstrating their understanding and information about their educational goals. Some of the information was completely different than the information that was provided to me in their IEPs and from discussions with their

families and other teachers. Through the use of the Glyph activity I was able to gather more information about my students and their preferred learning styles. While some of this information was not as useful to me as a classroom teacher the students were all excited to share the information and complete their Glyph. In the future, I would like to continue to use Glyphs but use it at the very beginning of the school year to get to know the students as well as allow the students to get to know each other. I would also like to have the incoming freshman who I have on my caseload complete a Glyph so that I can utilize that information when writing their IEPs.

QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Lesson Planning Reflection 2

Formal lesson planning was something that I had received instruction in during my undergraduate training but have found that over the years I have become more relaxed. I was no longer writing quality rationale and spent more time focusing on questions I would ask, assignments and assessments. As time progressed my lesson plans have become little more than the specific activities that the students will be completing as part of the class work time. During week 3 we learned about connecting objectives and collecting evidence. One assignment that stood out to me as being extremely useful was the Try This activity that required the revision of a lesson plan. In the revised lesson plan we were to include a revised objective, general rationale, methodology and assessment. Through this lesson I was able to take the basic lesson plan that I was currently using in my special education reading class and apply the criteria for this assignment to it. As a result I developed a well-written lesson plan with a clear objective, rationale, methodology and assessment. I have found that this to be a worthwhile process and have already been updating my lesson plans as I am teaching them. While my school does not have a specific lesson plan format that they want us to follow they are requiring that over the next year we develop a curriculum binder for each of our classes. As part of this curriculum binder we are to include specific lesson plans, activities, worksheets and assessments. Since I will have to continue updating my curriculum binder as I add new lessons I believe that I will continue to revise and/or develop new lesson plans that have a clear objective, rationale,

methodology and assessment component.

Sunrise over Fallujah Lesson Plan (original) Chapter 1 Rationale: Students will connect text to world Objectives: Students will identify the characters Students will demonstrate an understanding of where Fallujah is and why this is important to the story Methodology: Discuss the Middle East Look at the cover of the book and make connections Read chapter 1 Students will complete the chapter 1 study guide questions Assessment: Participation in discussion Students study guide

Revised Lesson Plan Chapter 1 Rationale: Students will make real world connections to the text by discussing current events in the Middle East, identify characters in the novel and jobs specific to the military, and use the picture on the cover to make connections with images from the news. Objectives: Using a map of the Middle East, students will make connections between the title of the book and the location on the map

Using the map and the cover of the book students will make predictions about what they believe the book is about Students will demonstrate understanding of current events in the Middle East by discussing what is happening in Fallujah currently Students will read independently for meaning Students will demonstrate their comprehension by answering a variety of questions.

Methodology: Question and discussion about where Fallujah is, where Iraq and Kuwait are and what is currently happening in the Middle East Use of a map to clarify the location of Iraq, Kuwait, and Fallujah Use of a variety of written questions and charts to monitor comprehension Assessment: Students will be assessed on their knowledge of the Middle East by participating in the discussion and marking the location of Kuwait, Iraq and Fallujah on their individual maps of the Middle East Students will complete the character chart by listing each character introduced and descriptions such as appearance, rank, job and hometown Students will demonstrate their comprehension by answering the following questions with at least 80% accuracy: 1. Who is the narrator? 2. Why are the soldiers in Kuwait? 3. Do you think that war will be declared?

Rubric Revision

Reflection 3

The third assignment that I have chosen to reflect upon is the rubric revision assignment. This assignment required that we took an old rubric and revise it so that there was a clear focus, use of positive language, even number of levels for scoring, parallel descriptors, and an organization that was easy to use. The rubric that I chose to revise was for a special education resource study hall. I chose this rubric because the original rubric was very vague and did not clearly explain any of the criteria used to explain what score should be given. By adding the different descriptors the students are now able to understand how they were graded. I had not used rubrics very often because I thought they were time consuming and the students never seemed to care. After learning about rubrics I am able to see the value that they add to the grading process as well as the learning process. Students benefit from having clear expectations and knowing exactly what they are being graded for. Another benefit of using rubrics is that they allow parents and administrators to know and understand what the student was graded on. I recently used a rubric in my special education science class for the drug unit project. Many of the students responded positively to the rubric and actually referred to it as they worked. In the future I plan on using rubrics on a more regular basis because they allow for the expectations to be clear and make grading easier because of the clear criteria for grading.

Original:

Behavior: 1-3 one meaning needs improvement-3 no improvement needed Attendance: 1- tardy- 3 being in seat at bell Work:1 no work-3 worked all hour Revised Behavior 0- Unexcused absence 0- Unexcused absence 0- Unexcused absence 1- Needed 2 or more prompts to get quiet down 1- Tardy/not in classroom when bell rang 1- Did not work on school work 2- Needed 1 prompt to quiet down 2- In class but not in seat when bell rang 2- Worked for half of the hour on school work 3- Required no prompts to quiet down 3- In seat when bell rang 3- Worked on school work for the entire hour

Attendance Work

Original Personal Philosophy

I believe the goal of all education is to help develop students into responsible, intelligent and productive citizens. My role as a teacher is to serve as the facilitator of discovery, learning and exploration. I am also able to serve as a role model and a source of information. Because students are unique I believe that people learn best when information is provided in several ways, such as tactile, visual, and aurally. In addition to having a multi-modal approach, it is also important to make the learning as enjoyable, relatable and relevant. If students do not enjoy a specific task they are less likely to put forth 100% effort. The teacher must find a way to make the information presented relatable and relevant to the students or they will disengage and not make long lasting connections with the information. The broad curriculum goals for the remainder of the year in my reading class are to incorporate more expository texts as well as magazine articles and newspaper columns. Since the students are all struggling readers they have not had very much experience reading anything other that childrens fiction novels. I hope that by the end of the school year my students will be able to find different articles that they can read as well as read a variety of materials. My professional goals for the remainder of the year is to learn more about Aligned by Design (AbD) as well as incorporate different forms of assessment into the lessons. Since my school has decided to align the curriculum with the common core standards by way of the AbD program. I will need to attend several in services to learn more about the AbD program/process as well as learning about more about the common core standards. The purpose of assessment and evaluations is to measure what the student knows and understands. They can be formal and informal. Evaluation can also apply to the teacher.

It is important that while we are checking for student understanding, we also need to reflect on our own instruction and determine if it is the most effective or if something needs to be changed. I personally track my students growth by observing how students engage during discussions, tests, quizzes, assignments and projects. Incorporating a variety of assessments and evaluations allows for the students to demonstrate their growth in the way that best suits their learning style.

Revised Personal Philosophy In the beginning of this course we were asked to write our personal philosophy

including how people learn, the role of the teacher, goals for education, desired outcome for student this year, curriculum goals for the year, professional goals for the year, purpose of assessment and evaluations and how I track student growth. In regards to how people learn, the goals for education, goals for students and the desired outcome I do not think I would revise my original statement. I continue to believe that the goal of all education is to help develop students into responsible, intelligent and productive citizens. My role as a teacher is to serve as the facilitator of discovery, learning and exploration. I am also able to serve as a role model and a source of information. Because students are unique, I believe that people learn best when information is provided in several ways, such as tactile, visual, and aurally. In addition to having a multi-modal approach, it is also important to make the learning as enjoyable, relatable and relevant as possible. If students do not enjoy a specific task they are less likely to put forth 100% effort. The teacher must find a way to make the information presented relatable and relevant to the students or they will disengage and not make long lasting connections with the information. In regards to my curriculum goals for this year I had originally written that I would like to incorporate more expository texts as well as magazine articles and newspaper columns into my reading class. I would revise this and say that this is a goal for my English and science classed as well. Since the students are all struggling readers they have not had very much experience reading anything other that childrens fiction novels. My goal for the students remains that by the end of the school year my students will be able to find different articles that they can read as well as read a variety of other materials including autobiographies, informational and expository texts.

My professional goal had originally focused on learning more about the Align by Design (AbD) process that my school is adopting as well as to learn more about different forms of assessments. I would not revise my goal for the AbD process but I would revise my goal regarding assessments. However, I would like to revise my goal regarding assessments to state that I would like to incorporate the assessments that we have learned about into my classroom. Another professional goal that is important to me is to evaluate the materials that I am currently using in my classes and find more materials that are well written and worth incorporating in the classes. In regards to my philosophy about assessments I would not revise my statement. I continue to believe that the purpose of assessment and evaluations is to measure what the student knows and understands. They can be formal and informal. Evaluation can also apply to the teacher. It is important that while we are checking for student understanding, we also need to reflect on our own instruction and determine if it is the most effective or if something needs to be changed. I personally track my students growth by observing how students engage during discussions, tests, quizzes, assignments and projects. Incorporating a variety of assessments and evaluations allows for the students to demonstrate their growth in the way that best suits their learning style.

Portfolio Assessment for ED 606 (Dr. Deb Patterson) Name: Molly Lippitt Semester: Fall 2011

Cover Letter Comments Invites reader into portfolio Letter is personalized Gives concise overview of portfolio contents Accurately proofread and edited Letter format is correctly followed Selection #1 Selected event or experience is clearly described or represented Selection is accompanied by reflection Reflection identifies reason for selection, articulates learning that took place, and defines next steps Selection #2 Selected event or experience is clearly described or represented Selection is accompanied by reflection Reflection identifies reason for selection, articulates learning that took place, and defines next steps Selection #3 Selected event or experience is clearly described or represented Selection is accompanied by reflection Reflection identifies reason for selection, articulates learning that took place, and defines next steps Philosophy Reflection Philosophy content is clearly written (free of error, shows depth of thought) Philosophy is accompanied by reflection and sets three goals for coming year Other Items (Optional) Selected event or experience is clearly described or represented Selection is accompanied by reflection which articulates learning Portfolio as a Whole Overall organization, includes all items on the checklist Selections are substantive, demonstrating depth of thought and clarity of writing Presentation (organization, careful editing and proofreading, clear language) Reflections are specific and clearly written (includes overall average of the above scores) Overall Comments:

S A

S T A

S T A

S T A

S T A

S -

S T A