TED 690- PROGRESS REPORT WEEK 3

Week 3
PDQP Progress Report

Courtney Burnett
TED 690
Professor Johnson

Abstract

TED 690- PROGRESS REPORT WEEK 3

The following paper in intended as a progress report to show my status in
completing the Professional Development Quest Portfolio. It includes information on
updated portions of the PDQP and lists questions and concerns I have as I venture
through this digital portfolio. It also includes plans I have to add to the portfolio and
it also notes areas I would like to see improvement in. The portfolio itself is intended
to be a work in progress, however this paper in intended to act as a progress report
of where I am in the process of the developing the PDQP. I also included a rational
portion at the end of the paper to describe the reasoning for choosing the artifacts I
did for my domain C and D.

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Introduction
The Professional Development Quest Portfolio, I have learned, is a
culmination of all you have done to this point as a teacher and all you will intend to
do as a teacher. It is ever-filling and is never deemed complete. Teaching is a
profession of life-long learning the PDQP should reflect that progress. Many artifacts
may be found within the portfolio can include: original lesson plans, evidence of
student learning, written feedback from observations and evaluations, digital video
and audio clips, and reflective journal entries. (Costantino, P. M. & De Lorenzo, M.
N. 2009 p. 6) All of these artifacts help to give your teaching impression to those
who are evaluating your craft. Reasons for using these artifacts must be justified
and they must go along with the Teacher Performance Expectation given for each of
the different domains found with the portfolio. The TPEs are based on national
standards for beginning and experienced teachers to provide the foundation for a
unifying vision needed to ensure consistency and compatibility with the many
approaches to teacher education and professional development. (Costantino, P. M.
& De Lorenzo, M. N. 2009 p. 9)
I would like to take some time in this paper to give a progress report to the
PDQP I am currently working on. At this point, my portfolio is about halfway to the
point I would like it to be to by the end of this course. I would like to add to the final
two domains in my portfolio (domain B and E) with meaningful artifacts. I would also
like to go through and make sure there are not any artifacts that would fall under
any of the domains I have already added to that would help to better serve those

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TPEs. I would also like to decide if a philosophy of teaching would be a benefit to
add to the completion of my portfolio.
I am happy to say that I have attained my initial goal of setting up my PDQP
as a webpage. I have never created a successful webpage and I was glad that I
challenged myself to go beyond doing a PowerPoint presentation, which is
something I am very comfortable with. I had seen others and their great webpages
and I decided I would go out of my comfort zone and try to create one on my own. I
am glad that I have stuck to this intention and saw it through. With the pride of
taking on this challenge, I have also faced many frustrations with setting up a
webpage for myself. I wasnt sure how to edit and add to the page at first. I am also
weary of having so much of my hard work and personal information saved to the
internet and not to my own personal computer.
I am incredibly concerned with the current evaluation of my PDQP, it has not
gotten the best reviews academically and I have many questions about how to
make the reception of my PDQP better. I have questions about the rationales and
reflections regarding the artifacts chosen for each TPE domain. I often wonder if I
am adding too much information in a certain area or not enough. I wonder and
question if the portfolio I have created to this point has truly given an accurate view
of my current teaching practices?
The next step for the portfolio is to complete the additional domains that
need artifacts to add to their sections on my website. I am going to also seek
counsel on how to gain a better academic review of my PDQP. I am going to make
sure my draft PDQPs are uploaded early enough each week to make it available to
peer critique. I will be diligently seeking out peer drafts to review as well. I believe

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that together, we make great counsel for each other. If I am encouraging my
students to collaborate and learn together; why wouldnt I feel that would make the
best learning community for myself as well?
Once I have completed my PDQP, I will leave it published for others to view. I
have found much help in viewing other teacher portfolios and I would like my
portfolio to serve a similar purpose. I think it is helpful to see how other teachers
handle certain situations and this public portfolio can serve that purpose for myself
and for others.

Rationales
I would like to include in this progress report paper a rationale for choosing
the artifacts that I did in the sections C and D of my PDQP. Under domain C, the
TPEs that are covered in PDQP are making content accessible for all students and
teaching for English learners. For this artifact, I included all of my CELDT scores
from my EL students from last academic year. I included all of them to show what
kind portion of my class of 24 can be EL students. Each of these students bring their
own set of needs to the classroom. I also included all of them, to show the range of
capability each EL student can bring to the classroom. I use the CLEDT scores at the
beginning of each year to help me group them in leveled groups for RTI rotations.
The most important thing that is told to me through the vast range of their
capabilities, is that all EL students should not be grouped into one. I have had some
EL students that struggle and I have had some EL students that are the top
performers in my class. These CELDT scores tell me that these students should not
be labeled as "EL" and expected to have the same needs. They are considered, as

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with any other student, to be an individual, with individual needs. I believe that this
artifact serves as a way to show how I teach EL students and also how I help to
make content accessible to all. The second artifact I included in domain C was our
schoolwide RTI rotation schedule. I included this artifact because our school is
considered a very low performing school with the status of a "program
improvement" school. We have made great strides towards pulling our school out of
the "PI" status and much of that success has been from our intense RTI rotation and
schedule. We have worked together to come up with a school wide schedule that
has been observed by neighboring schools and recognized by our county office. We
dedicate a solid 90 minutes of our school day to teaching to our students in
specified groups of SPED, Intensive, Strategic and Enrichment students. So once I
get the CELDT scores from the previous artifact, I immediately start placing the
students, as well as the rest of my class, into these specified learning groups. Within
these chunks of time, I often do reading or math group rotations to differentiate the
teaching even further. This school wide RTI schedule has been a labor of love for our
staff and has taken several years now to perfect. We alternate the first chunk of RTI
time between one week of math intervention and one week of literacy intervention
and those groups alternate week to week. Then we move into daily ELD intervention
and that time is protected and does not alternate. I always see those students at
that specific time. Our ELD time is even what determined our new ELA curriculum
this year, because it had such a strong ELD component and our students need so
much of this instruction in their daily instruction. I believe that this artifact shows
how we make a school wide effort to meet the needs of all students academically.
My third artifact found in domain C is a literature review that supports the
importance found in an RTI teaching structure. I included this to show why it is

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important that our school incorporates this type of teaching in efforts to make
academics accessible to all students involved.
For domain D, I included a beginning of the year questionnaire to get to know
the students from the parents perspective. I give these out as homework for the
parents on the first day and it opens up the line of communication between the
parent and myself. They can voice any concerns they have for the child
academically or personally, they can also state how they would prefer to be
contacted throughout the year. I felt that this artifact fell under the TPE that
discusses getting to know our students. The second artifact I included under domain
D is our schools wide professional development schedule. Our school is on a
"modified traditional" school schedule. It is not quite a year-round school, we go
back to school in July and have a Fall Break in addition to the traditional school
breaks. Because we have many school breaks throughout the year, we add many
days of professional development into those breaks. I have provided our year round
professional development schedule and PLC and staff meeting days to show how
much emphasis is placed on our staff development. We spend many hours
preparing ourselves for the benefit of our students. I felt that this artifact fell under
the TPE that discusses instructional planning, because so many time of our breaks
are spent in PLC time and instructional planning. The final artifact found under
domain D is a literature review that supports the importance of PLC. I found that the
country of Finland widely supports PLC time and the literature review discusses the
country and how it supports the time a teacher needs to spend in instructional
planning time, especially with colleagues.
Conclusion

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I appreciate that in teaching, there are standards to have amongst ourselves,
just as students follow a set of standards. The TPE domains give that to the teaching
community and it helps teachers to have a common language between their
practices and their progress as professionals. The standards are set with a purpose
for the teachers to reflect upon. I feel that is what this project has done for me thus
far. I have been given the opportunity to gage where I am as a teacher as this point
of my career, and decide where I would like to go from here. I intend on giving
myself the same learning opportunity in the years to come. Every five years would
be a great goal for me to revisit my portfolio and update the artifacts and rationales
as best I can to meet my teaching practices at that time in my career. As those five
year increments come up, goals will likely be different each time and that will simply
reflect on the evolving of my teaching. If the same goals remain, I would have to ask
myself, what am I not doing to attain and master this goal that I had set forth for
myself so long ago? For that reason, I will be thankful for having something such as
this set up for myself.

Reference
Costantino, P. M. & De Lorenzo, M. N. (2009) Developing a Professional Teaching
Portfolio, A Guide for Success. Pearson: New Jersey.