Running head: PDQP Reflection p.

PDQP Reflection

William Pomfret

National University

September 18, 2019

PDPQ REFLECTION p. 2

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on my Professional Development Quest Portfolio

(PDPQ) and provide advice to future students as to how best to complete this task. There were

plenty of ups and downs, and I have worked diligently to complete every task with high-level

work and justifications. This review of my work represents my impressions of the work I have

completed and the best advice and insights I can provide to future students.
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Developing a PDQP

The first thing I did for my PDQP was to set up a Weebly webpage for it. I decided on

Weebly because I knew that the presentation would be aesthetically pleasing and would be easy

to use. I wanted to use an ePortfolio format that would be easy to use but still have flexibility for

creativity. So I began my Weebly page by creating a Home page that included a Table of

Contents and a photo of myself. In addition to providing a Table of Contents, I also included a

list of the TPE standards that are included in each of the TPE domains. The next thing I did was

set up an About Me page and Contact Me page. This allows the readers to get to know me and

find out how to contact me. After completing the About Me and Contact Me pages, I began to

create the domain pages for the portfolio. I created generic webpages to represent each of the

domains. I left spaces for artifacts, literary reviews, descriptions, titles and justifications. I did

this for each of the six domains.

After setting up the domains, I began to fill in the domains. I started by including four

artifacts and the justification for Domain A. I selected 3 artifacts originally, then later added in

the literary review from the book Teach Like a Champion 2.0. I originally included the “Tell My

Story” part in my justification. However, after reworking the PDQP, I decided that it didn’t

really fit in that part of the PDQP so I removed it and added it as its own component of the

portfolio. Next, I moved on and did the same for Domain F. On Domain 4, I added 4 artifacts,

the literary review, and justification. Similarly to the Domain A assignment, I added my five-

year professional development timeline to my justification. I included it because it part of that

week’s assignment. After consideration, I decided to take it out of the justification and make it

its own component of the portfolio because it does fit in with the professional development

domain, but it doesn’t really fit well as a justification. I did leave the part about my personal
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reflection on my strengths and weaknesses in both documents. Next, I moved on and did the

same thing for the remaining domains.

The best advice I can give on setting up a PDQP is to set up the way you want it to look

and how you want it presented first. Artifacts are easy to select and write up. However, part of

creating a clean, presentable ePortfolio is having a consistent, aesthetically pleasing presentation.

I would suggest using a simple website creator, like Weebly or Wix, and setting up a template

first. If you don’t do that, you will likely have to go back later and fix all of the formatting

issues. Creating the template first is really simple to do and ensures a smooth and easy process

the rest of the way through.

Artifact Selection

I attempted to select a variety of artifacts that highlighted not only quality work, but work

that represented the diversity of my work and class. It would have been easy to include artifacts

that are all similar and fit perfectly within the framework of the domains. However, I think that

it is important to demonstrate diversity in your teaching. Thus, I included as much variety as I

could in order to show that I am capable of teaching in different ways as well as assessing in

different ways or planning in different ways. This leads me to the best advice I can give when it

comes to artifacts, which is to show diversity. The hope we should all have is that the reader of

our PDQP examines our artifacts and comes to the conclusion that we are quality teachers that

are well-rounded. Therefore, the more variety you can include, the better your PDQP is.

Another piece of advice is to pick a book to do your literary reviews that is also diverse. The

literary reviews can be tedious, especially if the topics covered are limited. This will force you

to have to use multiple books to complete the entire project. A thirst for knowledge is always
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healthy and reading multiple books is not a bad thing, but this can extend the process of

completing the PDQP and can make the task seem more daunting than it already is.

Sharing a PDQP

As previously stated, I chose to present my PDQP using Weebly, which is a free website

application. It is extremely easy to use and requires no coding knowledge. This makes the

project easy to make. However, it makes it even easier to share because it is all web-based.

Once you have completed the project, you click the Publish button and the website becomes a

live site on the Internet. Then you can share the link with anyone and they can access your

ePortfolio. There are also options within the publishing process that makes your web-page only

accessible by those that you have shared the link with. This is helpful too because it allows you

to share your PDQP without putting all of your personal information online where anyone can

Google your name and find your information.

My best advice is to use a website service like this to complete your project and to

carefully inspect the security and privacy settings before publishing so that you can share your

information with those you want to have it and protect your information from those you don’t

want to have it.

Positive Learning Community

This is a difficult topic for me because I took this class as an independent study class.

Therefore, I missed out on the opportunity to interact in a learning community. However, I have

taken many other classes with other students and the benefits of working together and bouncing

ideas off of each other cannot be overstated. It is an incredible experience to work together with

likeminded individuals.
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The best advice I can give is to take this class in team setting rather than independent

study, if possible. It would have been so much more to my advantage if I could have taken ideas

from others to improve my PDQP.

Most Beneficial

The most beneficial part of this class was introspective thinking that I was forced to go

through in order to complete the project. I have always been a deep thinker, but this project

made me dive deeper into my teaching practices by examining work I assign, lesson plans I

create, assessments I give, and interactions with students. It helped me recognize new strengths

and weaknesses within my teaching style and inspired me to seek out new “artifacts” that can

help me become an even better teacher. The project, to me, was not really about creating an

ePortfolio to show to others. It was about creating something that made us look deeply at

ourselves and how we teach in order to expose areas of needed improvement. It shows our

diversity and growth as educators and highlights how we can improve.