Getting Entry Four
Right: A Process Guide (copyright Stanford Jumpstart 2009)
posted for educational purposes only:
1. Before you begin entry 4, read the section of your
portfolio instructions that explains all the features of the entry that you
must include. Do not proceed until
you know what the task is. If you
are not sure you understand it, ask someone in your support group or your
support provider to help you.
2. Use the templates for organizing the entry that are
attached. Outline the accomplishments you have using the template. You will not necessarily use all of
these, but this is a first step to seeing what you have.
3. Make a selection of the accomplishments you will feature
making sure that you have at least one from each of the three required
areas. Collect or solicit the
documentation you need for each accomplishment.
4. Outline the commentaries for each accomplishment. Unless you are using one
accomplishment to showcase two areas, try to create an outline that will result
in three good paragraphs.
¶ 1: Describe the accomplishment. You need to do two things. First, let the reader understand what you did and the
background circumstance that led you to do it. Try using a sentence frame such as this to get started:
“Because tell the need you addressed,
I chose to say what you did.”
Then describe what this accomplishment was about and what the work was
that you did,
Example: “Because my students’ parents told me that
they did not understand the standards-based report card, even though there was
an insert in the report they received, I decided to hold report card nights in
my classroom at the end of each grading period at which I helped parents
understand the reports their students received.”
¶ 2: Tell why this was significant. You can envision it this way.
This activity
did tell what it accomplished and why
that matters. This is a change …
Example: “Report card night helped parents understand
where their students were in relation to the standards they are expected to
achieve and enabled them to ask questions of me and one another about why their
students were achieving at the level indicated and what they might be able to
do to support the children in the future. This is very different than in
previous years when….”
¶ 3: Tell what the impact of the accomplishment has been on
student outcomes.
You could frame it this way:
“As a result of this
activity the which students
have tell what changes have occurred
in the students learning.”
Example: “ As a result of getting help understanding
what the report card tells them, parents are more involved in asking questions
of their students about their work in school, checking with me about ways to
help, and following through with homework. They also share with one another what they know about what
their children should be doing. “In the two years I
have been doing this, the number of students who are proficient in the major
learning goals for their grade has increased by 30% and the progress along the
continuum toward the goals has increased by 60%. More importantly, the parents
of my students are coming to me with questions more often and helping me better
understand the challenges their children encounter with respect to mastering
learning goals. Many of them are able to request specific kinds of help for
their children and to present concerns about the standards to school
administrators and school board.”
Reflective Summary
1. Before you
begin look at your selected accomplishments and the outcomes for all of them
and the ways that they have been effective. You might want to write a summary of these ways.
Example: “ All of my accomplishments had an impact on
student learning in different ways.
Accomplishments 1, 2, and 3, helped me form better partnerships with
parents in ways that helped them become an integral part of the classroom
community. Accomplishment 4 …” Do not restate all the accomplishments! Just allow the reader to see the
relationships between the outcomes.
Summarize the results very briefly and discuss what you
think has had the most powerful impact.
Example:
“ Almost all of my accomplishments enabled me to become a more trusted
and integral part of this community and this has created a real team approach
in my classroom to the way students are supported. The most powerful impact in this respect has been my work
with the Open Classroom Program because allowing parents to drop in and
observe, participate, and share has created a true community of parents,
teacher and students learning together.”
…
Discuss how you will expand on the work you have begun in
the future. This can be building
on the same approaches or addressing some need you still see and want to do
something about.
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