Janessa Bechard

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs

Portfolio Entry for Wisconsin Teacher Standard Ten

EDUW 696 Documents of Accomplishment

Instructor: Catherine Anderson

January 22, 2018

Selected Wisconsin Teacher Standard Descriptors

Wisconsin Teaching Standard #10: 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 students’ 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 (e.g. family circumstances, community environments, health, and economic

conditions) may influence students’ lives and learning.

Dispositions The teacher values and appreciates the importance of all aspects of a child's

experience.

Performances The teacher establishes respectful and productive relationships with parents and

guardians from diverse home and community situations, and seeks to develop cooperative

partnerships in support of student learning and well-being.

Danielson Framework for Teaching

Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities: Accomplished teachers have high ethical standards

and a deep sense of professionalism, focused on improving their own teaching and supporting

the ongoing learning of colleagues. Their record-keeping systems are efficient and effective, and

they communicate with families clearly, frequently, and with cultural sensitivity. Accomplished

teachers assume leadership roles in both school and LEA projects, and they engage in a wide

range of professional development activities to strengthen their practice. Reflection on their own

teaching results in ideas for improvement that are shared across professional learning

communities and contribute to improving the practice of all.

Component: Communicating with Families

Although the ability of families to participate in their child’s learning varies widely because of

other family or job obligations, it is the responsibility of teachers to provide opportunities for

them to understand both the instructional program and their child’s progress. Teachers establish

relationships with families by communicating to them about the instructional program,

conferring with them about individual students, and inviting them to be part of the educational

process itself. The level of family participation and involvement tends to be greater at the

elementary level, when young children are just beginning school. However, the importance of

regular communication with families of adolescents cannot be overstated. A teacher’s effort to

communicate with families conveys the teacher’s essential caring, valued by families of students

of all ages.

Element: Information about Individual Students

The teacher frequently provides information to families about students’ individual progress.

National Board Core Proposition # 5: Teachers are members of learning communities.

 Introduction

For the past three years, I have been a kindergarten teacher at Sherman Elementary

School. During my first year teaching, I team taught with another teacher. The past two years, I

have had my own classroom and I have thoroughly enjoyed having my own class. I find teaching

to be extremely satisfying. The amount of growth that I experience personally, in addition to the

mass amount of growth that my students have over the course of one year is invaluable. I am

very proud of the work that I am able to do to better the education of my students. Sherman has

been a great place to be an educator. My colleagues are extremely supportive and are always

doing things in the best interest of all of our learners.

I am also active in my greater school community. I serve on two main committees within

my school. I am a grade-level representative on our school-wide Positive Behavioral

Interventions and Supports (PBIS) team. I also represent kindergarten on our school-wide

literacy team. I enjoy being on these committees because I believe that I am able to help support

not only the students in my own classroom, but also the students and staff throughout our school.

The work that we do as committees positively affects our knowledge about our students in

addition to supporting best practice instruction. This is all important because we all want our

students to have optimal growth.

Outside of the classroom, I am one of three kindergarten teachers on our district-wide

literacy curriculum review team. We are looking at making changes from pre-kindergarten to

twelfth grade. This committee meets multiple times throughout the school year in addition to

completing work during the summer. I am also actively working towards my 1316 Wisconsin

Reading License through St. Mary’s University.

 I believe it’s very important to be involved with families and the community. I have been

able to host University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire students in my classroom for four semesters. I

love having the ability to share my knowledge with pre-service teacher candidates. Also, I

communicate weekly with my families about what is coming up in the classroom and how they

can support their child. Additionally, I send home communication forms explaining where their

child is at academically and behaviorally. It is important to have open communication with

families because everyone involved benefits from it. When students see their families and

teachers collaborating, they understand that we all value their education and want them to

succeed. As a school, we meet with families twice a year to share student growth, achievements,

and concerns.

As a community member, I have been reaching out yearly as a kindergarten

representative for the district to teach families and the community about what happens in

kindergarten. The event I help out at is called, “Countdown to Kindergarten”. I also plan on

becoming a tutor at the Children’s Dyslexia Center of Upper Wisconsin. I will continue to share

my knowledge of teaching with the community and with families. I think it’s important to be

involved in our community because as my connection deepens within the community, I have a

stronger drive to continuously work to better my education for the enrichment of our community.

I have been very fortunate to be able to be an active learner for my entire life. It’s crazy

to think about how many years I have been enrolled in school. From being an elementary school

student to graduate school, I just keep learning. By having the opportunity to continuously learn,

I believe that my knowledge is able to stay up-to-date about developmentally appropriate

practices in addition to supporting best teaching practices for all learners. I believe that by

continuing to learn, I am always working towards the same end goal to establish a happy,
engaging, and welcoming environment for all learners. I believe that if learners feel valued and

welcomed, they will flourish. I have developed exponentially as an educator, member of society,

socially, and mentally. I believe my passion for learning is obvious to my students and helps

motivates their drive to learn. As a learner, I have attended the Positive Behavioral Interventions

and Supports Leadership Conference. At this conference, information about providing equitable

multi-level system of support within schools and districts.

During my first year of teaching, I sat back and really just tried to learn the ins and outs

of being a kindergarten teacher at Sherman Elementary School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The

past two years, I have really stepped up my role in leadership and collaborating. I have taken on

the role of being on the district-wide literacy curriculum review team, being a grade-level

representative for our PBIS system and being a member on our school-wide literacy

implementation team. My administrator has also requested I take on other additional roles within

our building. Various teachers in our school have observed my implementation of specific

engagement protocols and have come to me as a leader in the school. By being a leader in the

school, it helps me continue to understand the value of my work. As my work is shared and

implemented throughout the school, I am able to feel appreciated and know that I have made a

difference in many lives. As a lifelong learner, it has been great being able to share my

knowledge from my graduate level classes with my colleagues and students.

Accomplishment #1- Teacher as a Partner with Families and Community

As a teacher in the Eau Claire Area School District, I have taken it upon myself to host

University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire (UWEC) pre-service teachers in my classroom. During this

time, I have been able to be an advocate for my students while sharing my knowledge of the
development of kindergartners. I have had eight teacher placements in my classroom in the past

two years.

Teacher candidates are chosen by UWEC and are placed into high-quality classrooms in

the Eau Claire area. When a university student enters my classroom, I am quick to note my

student’s abilities and encourage respect and professionalism from the university student.

Students typically spend four hours in my classroom, twice a week. To establish connections and

a strong foundation of knowledge for being in a classroom, I allow the university students to

push themselves to pursue a greater understanding of being a kindergarten teacher.

As an educator, I think it’s extremely valuable to have new members of the community in

the classroom. University students are able to share their knowledge with learners. It is very

beneficial to welcome pre-service teachers into the classroom. Students are able to have more

teacher interactions along with assistance as needed.

As a cooperating teacher, I have set up a system where both the pre-service teacher and

the kindergarten student are provided with additional experiences. My students have benefited

greatly from this additional time meeting with a university student. I have been able to guide and

collaborate with the pre-service teacher to help them better understand appropriate expectations

of kindergarten learners. During our English Language Arts time, I am able to oversee university

students working with students who need extra support. During these interactions, kindergartners

are having the opportunity to grow as learners, the pre-service teachers are able to become more

comfortable with working with young learners, and I am able to welcome the community into

my classroom to learn more as an educator.

My kindergarten students have been able to experience the additional support in their

classroom while being a respectful, responsible, and safe learner. This has helped me as an
educator because I have had the opportunity to plan and reflect on my teaching with my pre-

service teacher. This is valuable to all parts of the learning process (pre-service teacher,

kindergartners, and myself) and I will continue to support the growth in not only my own

learning and kindergartners learning but also members of the community, such as university

students.

Accomplishment #2- Teacher as a Learner

As a member of my school’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, I had the

opportunity to go to a PBIS conference in Wisconsin Dells in August 2017. This was a two day

event where educators from Wisconsin learn how districts implement PBIS and share strategies.

Our school had seven team members attend this conference. After splitting up and going to

different sessions, we were able to collaborate on how we can take what we learned and use it at

our school.

During this conference, there were many options for different sessions educators could

attend. These ranged from sessions about mental health, to classroom set up, to how to set up

conferences with families. I chose a session about setting up the classroom to enhance child

choice, family meetings, and then another session about student engagement.

Each session was led by an educator or district PBIS coach. I found it very valuable to

hear what other educators had to say about the PBIS system and how they implement it in their

building. The sessionI found t the most valuable was on how we need to embrace, engage, and

empower not only our students, but our families as well. I was able to take away a lot of

knowledge on how we can continue to support our students at our school. Since we have been to

this conference, our school has begun a fifth-grade leadership team. Students have the

opportunity to sit down in the conference room and share ideas about ways to engage and
empower our school community.

I believe it’s invaluable to give a voice in our school system to our learners. These

children have wonderful ideas and I really think it’s important for them to share their ideas to

make our school a better place. When students feel they are being heard, they have more “buy-

in” at school and typically feel more respected. As a learner, I know strengthening my

knowledge of empowering, engaging, and embracing students and their ideas has helped students

in our school feel much more connected to our PBIS system.

By having the experience of going to the PBIS conference, I was able to take ideas from

other teachers and help put them in place in our school. I am appreciative for the opportunity I

had as an educator and member of our school’s PBIS committee.

Accomplishment #3- Teacher as a Leader and Collaborator

Accomplishment #3

I was chosen as one of three kindergarten representatives for our district for our Literacy

Within Supportive Learning Environments review team. This committee began work in the

summer of 2017 and will continue through the 2019-2020 school year. As a team, we have made

many revisions to our writing and language implementation within our district. As a leader on

this team I have had many opportunities to share my voice as a kindergarten teacher.

During the summer, we met as a pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade team. We met in

vertical groups along with horizontal grade level teams. We established Common Core State

Standards considered essential in our district and which would be supporting standards. After

getting the baseline down of what our expectations will be for our students district-wide, we

continued our work as a grade-specific team.

 The kindergarten committee has met four times. Our focus for each meeting has always

been to better our understanding of curriculum materials for our students to prepare them for

post-secondary success. Within each meeting, we have topics we focus on. The kindergarten

team has made changes to our report card, we have updated pacing guides, we have established

where our current writing framework has gaps and how we can fill them.

As one of four representatives for this team at our school and one of three kindergarten

representatives, I feel I have many responsibilities to ensure complete understanding on a

building level. As a school, I have facilitated many professional development meetings along

with leading three schools in instructional planning. Our work as a team has been very rigorous

and fast-paced. Next year, our team will focus on changes in our reading curriculum and then

finally we will move into speaking and listening. I have been enjoying the leadership role that I

have taken in the Eau Claire Area School District.

Reflective Summary:

Looking at all three of the examples of how I have been a learner, leader, and

collaborative member of the community, I have noticed a trend. This trend is that I have been

able to immerse myself into collaboration throughout the past three years of teaching. I believe

that it is crucial to have good relationships with teacher candidates, other PBIS members, along

with other district-wide educators.

I have taken on a lot of roles throughout my district in the past three years. I had many

behaviorally challenging students during my 2016-17 school year. I took it upon myself to

become an active member in PBIS, implementing a supportive learning environment by using

engagement protocols, and have done many hours of research to provide a nurturing, safe,
learning environment. By taking the time to ensure the environment and community in my

classroom is favorable, it has improved student learning.

In the future, I would love to continue to pursue my Wisconsin Reading License (316). I

have already taken courses towards this license and would love to continue taking these courses.

By learning specifically about reading development and instruction, I have been able to increase

my understanding of the process of balanced literacy in the classroom. I truly feel like I am a

lifelong learner and plan to eventually pursue National Board Certification.

Evidence:

2017-18 Kindergarten class with a UWEC Pre-Service Teacher

(Evidence for Families and Communities)
Certificate for Hosting UWEC Pre-Service Teachers
(Evidence for Families and Communities)
PBIS Student Collaboration Team
(Evidence of Learning)
Essential Literacy Standards Chart
(Evidence of Leader/Collaborator)