Monday, July 20, 2015

My Teaching Portfolio

I'm on the hunt for my first teaching job, EVER! Since I will be interviewing a lot (hopefully) in the next few weeks, I knew that I needed a way to present all that I have learned so far in my teaching career. I did a lot of research online, and it seems to be a good idea to create a teaching portfolio.

A teaching portfolio allows you to display all kinds of things related to your teaching career. It's also an easy way to reference certain things during an interview and it's great if you can actually show them what you are talking about!

For my own teaching portfolio, I wanted to incorporate my looooove for owls. So I designed my own cover page, table of contents, and title pages to match what I was looking for. Here's what it looks like:

Cover Page
I didn't put any owls on the cover page. I wanted the front of my teaching portfolio to be professional, with a touch of color. I feel like yellow represents confidence and happiness, both of which are essential to the interview process.
 
Table of Contents
I initially had twelve different pages, but I thought that was way too much. Plus, when I went shopping for tabs, there were only eight tabs in a pack of the kind I needed. I'm kind of OCD, so I wouldn't buy two packs and just use four out of the second pack. I just couldn't! So I decided to combine a few pages together to get it down to eight pages. Eight pages = eight tabs. Perfect. This page is also where my beautiful owls start to make an appearance.
 
For the eight pages, I color coded the owls with the corresponding color of the tab. Told you I was a little OCD. I bought the eight tabs in rainbow colors, so each of the title pages has one owl on it with the matching color.
 
Title Page
 
I wrote my philosophy of education while I was in graduate school. It's only a total of two pages, double-spaced. It pretty much goes over my journey to become a teacher, my motivation in becoming a teacher, and my teaching style.
 
Title Page
Since I am a first year teacher, my resume does not include much! It's one full page long. I included my education, both undergraduate and graduate, my certifications, student teaching experiences, teaching related experiences, and trainings that I have received. For my references, I included three recommendation letters that I received from my two cooperating teachers and my mentor teacher.
 
Title Page
 
Title Page
 
Title Page
 
Title Page
 
Title Page
 
Title Page
 
Adorable, right? In any other job field, the owls and colors would be inappropriate. But in teaching? It just shows them that you are creative and colorful, just as teachers should be!
 
I have my first interview tomorrow, but it's a phone interview so I won't be able to show the principal. But I will still have it right in front of me to reference during the interview. I'll let you know when I get the opportunity to show a principal, I'm sure they will be impressed!