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Professionalism

Jeanette Rausch

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs

EDUW 696 – Portfolio Production and Presentation

EDUW 696 Portfolio

Instructor: Stephanie Belter

July 15, 2018

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Wisconsin Teaching Standard #7: Teachers are connected with other teachers and

the community. The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and

agencies in the larger community to support pupil learning and well being and acts with

integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.

Knowledge The teacher understands how factors in the students’ environment outside of

school may influence students’ lives and learning.

Dispositions The teacher is willing to consult with other adults regarding the education

and well-being of her students.

Performances The teacher acts as an advocate for students.

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Danielson Domains

Domain 4: Professional Responsibility

Component 4a: Reflecting on Teaching

Component 4b: Communicating with Families

Component 4c: Communicating with Families

Component 4d: Contributing to the School and District

Component 4e: Growing and Developing Professionally

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National Board Core Proposition 5: Teachers are members of learning

communities.

NBCTs collaborate with others to improve student learning.

They are leaders and actively know how to seek and build partnerships with community

groups and businesses.

They work with other professionals on instructional policy, curriculum development and

staff development.

They can evaluate school progress and the allocation of resources in order to meet state

and local education objectives.

They know how to work collaboratively with parents to engage them productively in the

work of the school.

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Goals

1. I will develop positive connections with parents and guardians of my students to

promote student growth and success.

2. I will continue to seek out opportunities that allow me to grow as an educator and

improve my ability to promote student success.

3. I will collaborate with other educators to bring knowledge and innovative ideas to

my content team and to my school.

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Introduction

An educator’s job is full and complex. We must wear many hats throughout the

day. As I have been reflecting on Wisconsin Teaching Standard 10, I realize that these

different hats allow me to grow and develop. I have been an advocate for my students, a

student of education, as well as a collaborator with many teams in my school and in my

district.

This past year has been very influential in my growth in all of these areas. I have

improved greatly in all three of these areas and continue to strive for betterment. I was

presented with a fairly unique opportunity this past year to be on a team to help create an

Individual Education Plan for a student. This was unique because we rarely have students

identified for special education at the high school level. I also worked on my

communication with families, both positive and constructive.

I have also focused this past year on continuing to learn as an educator. I attended

more trainings and conferences this year than I have in the past. I had the opportunity to

attend a class for formative assessment in the math classroom as well as attend the

Wisconsin Math Council’s annual conference. I was able to gain so many techniques as

well as an understanding of how to apply the techniques into my classroom.

Finally, this year I was able to grow more than any year before as a leader and

collaborator. I have worked on my content teams in previous year but this year I was able

to expand the teams and types of teams that I was a part of. I was asked to be a part of my

school’s cultural equity workgroup. This group consisted of teachers and staff from all of

the schools in the district and we worked to educate our district on the history of cultural
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inequity as well as discuss and implement plans to make our school more equitable. I also

had the opportunity this year to present at a technology buffet. This is a district wide

mini-conference where teachers are able to share resources that they have found to be

helpful in their classroom. I was able to collaborate with the high school’s math coach

and put together a presentation explaining an interactive presentation slideshow called

Peardeck. This is a technology that I have used in my classroom many times and it was

exciting to share something that I find so helpful with other teachers.

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Families and Communities

This year I wanted to focus on developing better communication with the families

of my students. I even picked this topic as the focus for my Professional Practice Goal

this year. Interestingly, I was presented with an opportunity to develop communication as

well as advocate for a student in a new way this year when I had a new student placed in

my class. This student hadn’t been in a public school previously and was going through

the process of developing an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). This is unusual to do

at the high school level because most students are identified and get their first IEP before

they get to high school. I was able to learn so much from this experience.

I was on a team comprised of counselors, administrators, special education

teachers, the school psychologist, and the parents. Together, we discussed our

observations and our thoughts on the student’s needs. We were able to put together a list

of accommodations to start with so that this student’s teachers would know what he

needed to be successful, even before the formal IEP was in place. The student was

allowed to utilize extended time, class notes, and preferential seating to assist his

learning.

In my class, I saw how much this helped him and how much more success he had

with the content when I implemented these few techniques. His scores greatly improved

along with his attitude. It was incredible to me to observe how big of a change a few

alterations could make to a student’s ability to reach success.

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Learner

Since I started teaching, I feel that I am always learning new things. I am learning

about my students, their culture, engagement techniques, instructional techniques, and

most of all, I’m learning about myself. Outside of my classroom, I have been given the

opportunity to attend many different trainings and conferences. The conference that I

have attended every year is the Wisconsin Mathematics Council (WMC) annual

conference. This conference offers so many different sessions on almost anything that

you could imagine.

This past year, I chose to attend sessions that focused on increasing engagement

in mathematics classes by utilizing conceptual understanding and critical thinking. The

way to incorporate these aspects is to implement tasks into lessons. This allows students

to be put in the driver seat and take ownership of their work. They are asked to reason

through the material using information that they already know. Students become more

engaged in the content this way and also are much more likely to remember the material

later on.

When I came back to my classroom after attending this conference, I incorporated

some of these tasks into my lessons. Students were hesitant about them at first, but slowly

got the hang of it. The more that the students were able to practice these new skills, the

more comfortable they were with completing the tasks. I find this to be extremely helpful

skills for students to develop. While they may not use the content that I am teaching them

everyday, they will use the problem solving skills that they develop in my class

throughout their entire adult life.

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Leader/Collaborator

The final aspect that I was able to focus on this year was becoming more of a

leader in my building. This past year was my fourth year teaching and my third year at

Baraboo High School. I was starting to feel more comfortable in my role as a teacher and

looking to branch out into more of a leadership role. When the math coach asked me if I

would present at a technology buffet with him I was happy to take on some more

responsibility.

We presented on an interactive slide program called Peardeck. This is an online

platform that allows the teachers to ask questions and get responses from students. The

teacher is also able to project student’s answers anonymously on the front board. This

technology has increased my students’ participation in class and sparked many great

discussions. I was excited to share what I believe to be a great resource with other

teachers. I believe that other teachers will be able to utilize this program to have positive

results in their classes as well.

During the session that we put on, there were many teachers from all grade levels

attending. We were able to explain how to use the program and also what uses we had

found for it. The teachers were able to make their own presentation with our assistance. It

was great being able to assist my peers and be able to bring something productive to

them. I had heard from other students that some of the teachers who were present for the

presentation were using the program in their classes and also having success. I feel that I

was able to provide a positive resource to my peers and then they were able to

successfully utilize the resource.

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Reflective Summary

What patterns do you see emerging from your examples?

1. As I reflect on my experiences outside of my classroom, I realize that am doing

my best to seek out the best resources to improve student success. I am reaching

out to parents, other teachers at my school, and finding trainings that I think will

be helpful in increasing student achievement.

2. I also noticed that I am striving to increase student ownership in their learning. I

am trying to increase the amount of activities I use to increase engagement and

interest in the material we are learning about.

What was the most effective in improving student learning?

1. I believe that one of the most effective aspects in terms of student learning was

collaborating with parents and teacher to identify student needs. It has amazed me

what a difference can be made when there are a few minor things provided for a

student.

2. Another important piece to improving student learning was engagement. I was

able to implement tasks and interactive slides into my class this past year. Having

these in place allowed my students to take more ownership in the material and to

focus much more.

What future contributions would you like to make if you have the opportunity?

1. I want to continue to grow in my leadership role within my school. I want to

continue to learn and share techniques that will be helpful in the classroom. I also
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want to continue to learn and educator others through the Cultural Equity

Workgroup.

2. I would like to continue to learn and implement discovery based learning and

tasks into my classroom. I have seen students grapple with these techniques and

have seen them overcome their misconceptions. I find these types of activities to

be much more helpful in terms of retention.

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Artifacts

Accommodation Plan Preceding a Student’s IEP

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Wisconsin Mathematics Council Annual Conference Registration

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Portion of PearDeck Presentation used at Tech Buffet

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Professional Documents

Teaching License
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Teaching Resume