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  • Remote Learning – What I’m doing as a Teacher

    So the time has come where COVID-19 has forced us into the inevidable lockdown, and everyone is now required to work from home. As a teacher, the expectation is that we continue to provide an education for students, largely with online based materials for those who have access from home.

    I may be exceeding expectations here, but none of us have done this before, and I’m going to do what I can do to be the best teacher for my students, especially now in such an uncertain time.

    Advance Organiser

    Tomorrow morning my advance organiser will be sent out via Google Classroom to my students. This is just a Google Doc with an outline for the day, similar to what I run through with them at the start of a ‘normal’ school day.

    The outline for the day will keep much of the same routine that they would have at school. Many of the activities we do in class they can do at home. This will hopefully provide some kind of normality to the uncertainty that is happening right now.

    I’ve set a lot of these documents up as templates, so that I can copy and paste them each day, with minor adjustments. This makes it easier for myself as the teacher to replicate each day and not get bogged down by continually having to create things. I can just copy and paste over what is relevant each day.

    Bookmark Bar

    To those ends, I’ve temporarily created a folder in my Bookmarks Bar to keep every online service and teacher dashboard, document template and Google Classroom resource that I’ll be using in one place.

    Google Classroom

    Today I spent the morning getting the students to sign up to Google Classroom. Usually this is something I’d already done by now, but for some reason this task had gotten lost in the beginnings of the year activities.

    However, for tomorrow I have added in scheduled posts to be released at the relevant points in the day. This keeps kids from rushing ahead into the tasks, and spreads the work out throughout the day. This will also help keep the routine. All I had to do to create the scheduled posts is work through the Advance Organiser document I’d created for the day and posted an Assignment or Material with documents or links and scheduled them for specific times.

    In Conclusion

    At the end of the day – this might be over the top… but I’ve made it to be as sustainable for myself most of all, so that I can maintain this throughout the foreseeable future. I’m not sure how many (if any) of my students will log in and join in with the programme. But even if just one student logs in and wants to follow the learning activities at home, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s worth it.

    Stay safe out there everyone.

  • Teaching Portfolios: How to set up a OneNote portfolio

    I’ve been using OneNote to build my teacher portfolio for a while now.

    Back in 2016 I wrote a quick how-to about building your teacher portfolio in OneNote. Back then, of course, there were 12 criteria, and so the template is no longer valid.

    However, since that time, I’ve also been adjusting the way in which I use OneNote to collect evidence and artefacts for the portfolio and how they’re organised. This means two things:

    1. Its okay to change as you go

    Don’t feel like you have to keep your portfolio in the same mode for all three years of your registration. If something isn’t working, don’t feel like you have to stick with it just because that’s how you decided to do it before you had even started.

    2. It’s flexible

    OneNote is completely flexible to keep up with however you want to organise it. If you want to have the years along the top sections, go for it. If you’d rather have each of the six standards along the top, you can do that too. However it works for your brain, OneNote is flexible enough to cope with it.

    Getting Set Up

    1. Install Microsoft OneNote

    Firstly, you will want to install Microsoft OneNote. Most Windows computers already come with it. However, there are TWO versions of OneNote. There’s the App Store version (which is an all-operating-system app for iOS, Android, and Windows Store), and there is the BETTER version that comes with Microsoft Office – OneNote 2016.

    You will want to get the OneNote 2016 version and ensure you pin the icon on your taskbar so you don’t open the other version.

    The main reason for this is the ability to install macros, and there is a LOT more control over things like tags, both of which you’ll want to utilise to make your portfolio.

    2. Get an Account.

    This isn’t a necessity to be able to use OneNote. However there are benefits to having an account, such as sharing, and accessing your portfolio on different devices. Luckily, Microsoft products are free for schools to use. Talk to your network administrator to get Office365 accounts set up for you and your staff.

    3. Create a New Notebook

    You’ll need to make a new notebook. I would call this something such as “Portfolio 2020-2022” or whichever year range you intend (I just use my registration years).

    The reason for this is that as you add evidence into your portfolio, the filesize of your notebook will get bigger and bigger, and cause things to take longer to load the more you have in it. By setting it to just three years, it keeps everything nicely in one place for one round of registrations. You can then save it off and begin a new one when your new registration begins!

    I’m not going to go into details on how to create a new notebook. You can find multiple tutorials for this online.


    OneNote Tutorial

    4. Set Up Sections

    The first decision you will want to make is whether you’re going to go with a date-based portfolio or standards-based portfolio. You can read more about that here.

    Along the top of OneNote 2016, you will see your ‘Sections’. Here you can see I’ve gone with a date-based section portfolio, but you could just as easily go with standards, or even types of evidence. Dates is just the one that made best sense to me, and it allowed me to try different things each year of the registration period without having to stick to one method of collecting evidence.
    Adding a new section is as simple as clicking on the white ‘+’ tab. You can add as many sections as you like, as well as, have groups of sections. So – for instance – you could have a section group for each year, and within each of those groups, have each of the six standards as sections as well. This essentially creates two layers of sections at the top. Like I said, OneNote is pretty flexible for however you want to structure your portfolio.

    5. Create Page Headings

    On the right hand side of OneNote are your pages (although you can completely customise this so that it is on the left).

    You can make up to three layers deep of pages by indenting them under parent pages.

    Here you can see I have an “Admin” parent page which holds my index, summaries, job descriptions, release records and anything else pertaining to my registration for the year.

    Then I’ve made an “Evidence” parent page which I dump all my pieces of evidence in it. I’ve gone through and put it roughly in chronological order, but this hasn’t always been the case. You could put it in subject order, or leave it in complete chaos. Once again – however your brain works!

    Below that is a quick screenshot of another way of setting out the parent pages. You can see that these are expandable with the drop down arrows. You can have anything as parent pages – you could even set up each of the six standards as parent pages that you then put evidence within.


    6. Create Custom Tags

    OneNote comes with it’s own set of pre-made tags (and many of these are useful to keep). It also allows you to add in your own tags, and this is where comes the power of OneNote.

    Remember: this is in Microsoft OneNote 2016 – not the App version.

    1. Under the ‘Home’ tab at the top, go to the tags part and open the drop down list of tags.
    2. At the bottom of this is a “Customize Tags…” button. In there, you can create six new tags, one for each of the six standards. You can select an icon for them – I’ve just used the six coloured squares.
    3. You can then order them and see them within your list of tags. You could even move them to the top so you have the shortcuts for them (I’ve got other tags that I use for teaching in those slots…)
    7. Macro It Up!

    This step is a bit extra for those who like to have a list of their evidence somewhere.

    In Microsoft OneNote 2016, there is a ‘Macros’ part under the ‘Home’ tab. You can download a range of different macros which are like plugins for OneNote that carry out different tasks systematically. The one that allows you to create an index page like the one above is called ‘Tag Summary with Page Names‘.

    Once you’ve installed it you can create a new page and then run it.

    It will ask you for the ‘Scope‘. Select from Current Section, or Current Section Group, Current Notebook, or All Notebooks. I usually just select the ‘Current Section‘ option.

    Under ‘Filter‘ make sure you select ‘All‘. The unchecked only and checked only are for the ‘To-Do’ tag which can be marked as checked or unchecked. Our tags are just tags.

    Click ‘Ok‘ and it will go through and create a list of the pages that include the different tags.

    It could take a while depending on how many pages are in the Current Section. It’ll go along and show you the progress and page it is up to, and eventually be all finished and show you a page like the one above.

    Now, bear in mind, you selected ‘All’ for the tags it would look for, and so it will also list the other tags as well. You can go through these and delete the list of pages under these tags, leaving you with just the six standards and the pages that include that tag on them somewhere

    Other Macros

    Another good macro to get is a TOC (Table of Contents) called TOC in Current Section and TOC in Current Notebook. Both of these will build a linked list of pages within your section or notebook and display it on its own page. It’s not dynamic, so it won’t update as you add pages, but is good to have at the end of the year for example.

    Some Examples

    And that’s it. Add your evidence as a page in the section, organise it and add it in a parent page, and you’re away laughing!

    Below are some examples of evidence I have added into my OneNote portfolio.

    A great thing about OneNote is it is quick and easy to add evidence. Just create a new page in the right section, move it under a parent page if you need to, and then start typing. The date of creation is added at the top (I believe you can edit this if you’re adding evidence in retrospectively) and then you can add in an explanation or annotation of the evidence. It is easy to add screenshots or images, photos, or other media. If you have an iPad you can even write and draw in the page with Apple Pencil or a stylus.

    In this example, you can see at the top of the page I’ve added in the tags for the standards I believe that the piece of evidence links to. This is the strength of using tags, is that you create the evidence ONCE, and attribute the tags to that one evidence. There’s no copying it to different sections and organising it everywhere making multiple copies or anything. Just add the tags at the top. You can see the star one, which is my icon for PB4L stuff, which this also pertains to.

    In Conclusion

    I hope that is enough to get you started in using OneNote to house your teaching portfolio. It is the best system I’ve found for keeping your portfolio, and I’ve tried most of them. In my opinion it is the best for because of the following:

    • Adding evidence is easy, with the ability to copy and paste images and text into it. It also saves automatically.
    • It fits with my other OneNote notebooks that I keep for my other teaching work, allowing me to quickly copy work I’ve already done over into my portfolio as well.
    • Tags. Need I say more?
    • Flexible organising to suit my needs. Whichever way I need to structure my portfolio, it has a way of making it work with different layers of sections, section groups, pages, parent pages, and more.
    • Being able to draw, take notes, and annotate evidence with my iPad and Apple Pencil in OneNote has been awesome. These are at an additional cost, but add to the whole experience, and part of the reason why I use OneNote for all the other areas of teaching as well.

  • Teaching Portfolios: How to set up a Blog based portfolio

    A blog based template is a good way of going about keeping a record of your portfolio. Many people are used to the system of blogging, and the key part of anything is it’s flexibility.

    Essentially, each piece of evidence is a new post. In that post you can include file links, images, and annotations or descriptions. Built in to every blog system is the use of categories and tags, which can be used to track the six teaching standards, subject of the evidence, type of evidence (image, photo, resource, video, etc…) and more. These can then all be used to create archive pages or collections to showcase in your portfolio.

    The big benefit to creating your portfolio online is its accessibility from anywhere, allowing you to add evidence no matter where you are. In addition to this, being able to easily share your portfolio with your principal in order to get your registration signed off is also a convenience. Another benefit is the ability to add comment, annotation, and descriptions or reflections to each piece of evidence and have it attached with the evidence permanently in one place.

    There are a couple of downsides to using a blog system. The first is a matter of privacy. The thing that makes it a great system, accessibility, is also it’s downfall. Unless you go through your evidence and black out names or blur faces in photos, and moderate any comments you make in annotations, all of these things will go up online for everyone to see. Of course, there are ways of making this work, such as making your portfolio private and password protected. You will have to provide your principal with an account to view it however if you wish to share it with them.
    Secondly, it requires extra work on your part. Each piece of evidence needs to be added as a new blog post, files and photos uploaded, and comments or descriptions added. This is slightly more cumbersome than just dropping files into a folder, or even adding it as a new page in OneNote – especially if you keep getting signed out!

    Pros
    • Accessible online from anywhere
    • Easy to share with others
    • Explanations, Descriptions and Reflections all easy to add to a piece of evidence and posted together.
    Cons
    • Privacy issues by being online
    • Additional work required to add pieces of evidence

    Creating a Teaching Portfolio in a blog

    Getting started is actually a lot easier than you’d first imagine. The hardest part is choosing a blogging system. There are several that I would recommend.

    In the end, choose one that works for you. If it’s too hard for you to use and get used to, then you’re not going to maintain your portfolio very well. The other factor to take into account is the privacy capabilities of the system – does it have private mode? Can you make posts password protected?

    I’m not going to go into details of how to use each of these systems. Most of them have a simple tag and category based system, especially the first two. Instead, I’ll go through the basic setup of what you need to build the structure of your portfolio.

    I’ve actually made an entire website for this purpose. You can visit it below:


    Wordpress.com PTC Portfolio

    Please go through and have a look at this site. It takes you through the whole set up with you, and addresses each of the issues outlined above.

    Examples

    Here are some examples of some blog based portfolios I’ve come across or made myself.

    PTC Portfolio Template

    Not only is the WordPress tutorial I built above a walkthrough, but also serves as an example of what your portfolio could look like. I’ve also put in some example evidence. Go ahead and have a look through it.


    PTC Portfolio

    ePortfolio – Google Site


    Here I used a combination of Google Drive and Google Sites. Essentially I would just add evidence into relevant folders in Google Drive and the Site would link to those folders. I could then create some featured posts to showcase some of the better pieces of evidence.

  • Teaching Portfolios: Example of My Portfolio

    Sometimes the best way to work out what you need in a portfolio is just to see what someone else has done.

    So I’ve taken a series of whole screen screenshots to show off what I’ve done. It’s not necessarily the best portfolio in the world, or at all what you do. But, it is what I have done, and have been adjusting and trying different things with time.

    Introduction
    Title Page

    I’m not sure why, but I made a title page for my portfolio. It just seemed like something that I could do to include some of my graphics design skills.

    Table of Contents
    A Table of Contents with all the pages for my portoflio listed

    I used a downloaded macro that creates a list of the pages in an indented list.

    In 2018 I focused my registration efforts into Inquiry, and through that Inquiry made links to the standards / criteria. I then collected additional evidence that I wanted to keep a record of.

    Evidence example 1

    This is an outline of the week plan for the student teacher in my class.

    Evidence example 2

    The Inquiry cycle we used as a school staff complete with some of the questions we would be asking ourselves.

    Evidence example 3

    A mid year review using ‘SWOT’ as a focus. I won’t go into details with these as they are merely serving as examples of the kind of evidence I collected for my Inquiry and portfolio. The key here is doing ONE thing but getting two uses out of it – as well as not doubling up on any work!

    Evidence example 4

    The record keeping of the interventions I carried out for one of my priority learners in my Inquiry.

    2019 contents page

    In 2019, I began keeping my portfolio in a slightly different method, with more focus on evidence than on Inquiry. Essentially, the Inquiry became just another piece of evidence, rather than using the Inquiry to show the standards being met.

    You can see on the right hand side that all the evidence has just been added into one big folder, and then in the Contents page it has a list of the tags being used using the standards as each tag.

    Evidence Example 5

    Another piece of evidence from a PLD session. Check the list on the right side; everything is in one big folder. I’ve attempted to keep it in chronological order.

    Evidence Example 6

    An example of anecdotal notes taken on one of my priority learners.

    Evidence Example 7

    In this piece of evidence, you can see three benefits of using OneNote for collecting evidence. Firstly, the ability to add in screenshots easily means that you can use other documents and then import them straight in. Secondly, I am able to add my own explanation and description of the evidence in the text above. Thirdly, you can see the three coloured box icons at the top of the page – these are the tags of the standards that this piece of evidence meets – meaning that one piece of evidence can fit into multiple standard categories without having to copy and paste or duplicate evidence.

    Evidence Example 8

    More evidence I’d taken from notes at a PLD workshop. Note the tags used at the top of this evidence.

    Evidence Example 9

    Finally, as mentioned, I had kept my Inquiry as a separate piece of evidence from my portfolio. Here I’ve made a link to the document (so that I could access it from OneNote and my portfolio) and included a quick screenshot as well as other notes and links that are relevant to the inquiry as the year went on.

    So hopefully that has been a help to those out there that are looking for ideas, or just want to see what others are doing with their portfolios. Remember to check out my other posts about teacher portfolios and ways that you can maintain and keep a portfolio of this kind.

  • Teaching Portfolios: Standards Based Portfolio

    One way in which you can build your teaching portfolio is to use each of the six standards as a different ‘category’ for which to organise your evidence into. This can be done easily in both hard copy portfolios as well as online or computer based portfolios.

    Whichever way you decide to go in setting up your portfolio, you should consider each of the steps in this guide.

    Hard Copy Portfolio

    For hard copy portfolios, use a set of file dividers to break your folder into sections.

    You could also use an expanding folder and set aside six pockets to put the evidence into.

    Keep the front divider page and use this as either a title for each section, or as a contents / index page for what you put into each section.

    Computer Portfolio

    If you plan on using Google Drive / OneDrive / Dropbox or even just Windows Explorer / My Documents, simply create a folder for your portfolio, then inside it, create six folders – one for each of the six standards.

    You could also use OneNote and create six sections along the top for each of the standards. Then each new piece of evidence just becomes a page within that section.

    See our article on OneNote portfolios for more info.

    Evidence

    As you collect evidence of your teaching practise, simply take a copy (photocopy or Ctrl+C) and put it into the relevant section. If it fits under more than one of the standards, then put additional copies into those sections. In Computer based portfolios this is very easy, as you just continue to paste each file into each relevant folder as many times as you like. For hard copy portfolios you’ll need to make additional photocopies.

    Don’t forget to date each piece of evidence as it comes in. Computer based portfolios will do this automatically for when the file was created.

    Keep Track

    It is a good idea to keep a contents page of what has been placed in your portfolio. There are several ways you could do this, but the simplest way would be to draw up six columns and each time a piece of evidence is added into the section, you add it to the column / columns that pertain to each standard. You could also use the index card of the dividers set that you purchased for your folder and add each piece of evidence as you go.

    It is also interesting to keep track of how many pieces of evidence you have in each of the standards. A simple file count in each folder will tell you in a computer based portfolio. A tracking sheet could be used for both systems as well so you can see what areas you might want to work on or focus on for the next term or two.

    This is a tracker from a bullet-journal, but one could easily adapt something like this for keeping track of the number of artefacts you have in each of the six teaching standards.

    This is just the beginning steps of setting up your Standards based Portfolio.

    Another way would be to set up your portfolio using dates as your organiser. You can see how this is done in the next article.

  • Teaching Porfolios: Date Based Portfolio

    One way in which you can build your teaching portfolio is to use each of the years for your registration as a structure for folders and dividers for your portfolio. This can be done easily in both hard copy portfolios as well as online or computer based portfolios.

    Whichever way you decide to go in setting up your portfolio, you should consider each of the steps in this guide.

    Hard Copy Portfolio

    Essentially you just need a divider, or section, or entire folder for each year. You could choose to group your years together for the three years of your registration, though this is not necessary.

    Then its just a matter of putting each piece of evidence into the relevant year as you teach. I would keep each one dated and keep them in the order they happened in. Then at the end of the year, close it off, and open up the next section ready for the new year.

    Computer Portfolio

    In Google Drive / Drop Box / Windows Explorer / Finder create three folders inside your portfolio. Label these as the years of your registration. Obviously, you could just continue, or keep your registrations together in a folder themselves.


    One big melting pot

    Obviously if you just add each piece of evidence into a folder for each year it will begin to resemble a dumping ground of teaching stuff or one big melting pot of evidence rather than a well organised portfolio.

    One could merge the standards based approach outlined here into each of the year folders in order to add another layer of structure to your portfolio in an effort to keep it more organised. But this would require six folders, all named the same, created three times for each of the years. It would work, but it wouldn’t be very elegant. But, if this is how your brain works, then its a viable option. However, a better way would be by using tags.

    Tags for each teaching standard

    You can create a set of six tags, each one relating to a standard.

    Tags can be used throughout most file systems, but in particular if you use OneNote I would highly recommend this. If you set up a blog for your portfolio, categories or tags can be used for this purpose. I believe both Windows and MacOS have the ability to tag files. I’m not sure this is possible in Google Drive or Drop Box, but I could be wrong.

    If you’re building a hard copy portfolio, then stickers are your friends! Choose six coloured stickers to use, make a key of which standard each colour relates to, and then in the corner of the piece of evidence, place a sticker for the standard or standards that it relates to.

    Multiple Standards

    The biggest benefit to using tags is that it becomes very easy to attribute multiple standards to one piece of evidence. This is something that happens more often than not. Using tags saves on the doubling up of evidence as you copy a piece into multiple standards folders of other systems. Instead, you merely add as many tags as is suitable for the evidence, and it is “added” to those standards straight away.

    OneNote is free to use. Whilst the online and app version is very good, I find the OneNote 2016 software to be the best.

    For syncing, you will need an Office365 account, which costs. However, it is free for all schools thanks to the Government schools agreement with Microsoft.

    The Best Method

    The best software I’ve found for building a portfolio is Microsoft OneNote. In particular is the ability to use tags. These can then be searched for, and using different macros it can also build a contents / index page for each of these tags.

    I used to use a blog type approach, with each post being a different piece of evidence, but with some privacy issues being that it was online, as well as the fact I was having to create posts as a piece of evidence, rather than just using the file, it became cumbersome and extra work with the doubling up. I did however appreciate the use of tags and categories to be able to organise the evidence while still maintaining a date based approach.

    I will write an in-depth article about setting up your teacher portfolio in OneNote soon.

  • Teaching Portfolios: Making them Work

    Even though they are not required by the Teaching Council, many schools use Teaching portfolios to show evidence that a teacher is meeting the criteria and standards for registration, and therefore can be signed off when their registration comes up for renewal.

    The format of appraisal and the keeping of portfolios has been a bug-bear of teachers for a while now, with the increase of workload in collecting evidence and putting it in a portfolio for something that is not actually required.

    However, I argue that portfolios are a good way of keeping records of your teaching career and can help make you a more reflective teacher in the process. I think that they would be worth maintaining even if they are not required.  While I acknowledge there is a bit of work required to keep it, there are several ways in which you can streamline the process so that keeping a portfolio is no longer a burden or a time-sapping exercise.

    The following are several keys to success that I’ve found along the way so that keeping and maintaining your teacher portfolio.

    Rule 1: Make it work for you; instead of you working for it…

    The number one thing you need to do when making your portfolio is to make it work for you.

    What does this mean?

    Put simply, choose a system, a method of keeping evidence, resources, materials, artefacts that is natural to you. If you’re a hands on person who prefers hard copies of things, then use a clearfile or lever-arch folder, or even a cascading folder.
    If you keep a lot of your teaching work in Google Docs, or use Google Drive a lot, then create a folder for evidence and put all the files in there.
    If you put a lot of your teaching work online, then you could set up a blog or website.

    Choose a system that works for you

    • Clearfile
    • Lever-arch File
    • Cascading Folder
    • Cardboard Box
    • Google Drive Folder
    • One Note Notebook
    • Google Site
    • Website
    • Blog

    You can find out more about each of the main ways to organise your portfolio at the following articles:

    Date Based Portfolio

    Standard Based Portfolio

    Organise it how your brain works

    Following on from the previous point on making it work for you: Setting up your portfolio in the way that your brain operates means that organising and maintaining your portfolio will be second nature to you rather than battling with yourself internally each time you come to update it.

    There are two main ways in which you can organise your teaching standards portfolio:

    • Date Based
      This consists of folders or sections labeled by date (ie. 2018, 2019, 2020). In each folder you put evidence of your teaching practise as it happens.
    • By Standard
      This consists of creating a set of six folders or sections, one for each of the six teaching standards. As you create each piece of evidence, simply put it in the folder that it best suits.

    Obviously there are other ways as well. I’ve found the best to be a combination of these two ways. It doesn’t matter really how you choose to organise it, as long as whichever way you choose is how your brain best processes a portfolio of this kind.

    Robust yet Flexible

    It wouldn’t be a blog about teaching without a bit of an oxymoron in it. When you set up your portfolio, make sure whatever system you choose to organise it in is robust. Stick to it, and keep it consistent. At the same time however, be flexible enough to adapt it to fit your needs as you go. Don’t be afraid to try new things, reorganise it or adjust it as you need to. Remember, the first rule is key: this HAS to work for you. As soon as it doesn’t, you’re working for it and it become cumbersome.

    Tags Are Your Friend

    One thing I have found the more and more portfolios I have made over my years as a teacher is that you need a way to tag or categorise each piece of evidence. Regardless of whether you go with a date based or standards based approach, having a system of tags will save you a lot of time. Using tags avoids the problem mentioned next.

    Avoid doubling up

    There is nothing more demoralising to a teacher (or anyone for that fact) than having to do something twice.

    Therefore, ensure that you only have to enter evidence into your portfolio once. The use of computer based portfolios certainly helps with this, especially with evidence that fits under multiple standards.

    Avoid doubling up

    There is nothing more demoralising to a teacher (or anyone for that fact) than having to do something twice.

    A very good portfolio will find a way in which you can keep your work organised when you create it AND enter it into your portfolio at the same time. This is somewhat of a pipedream, though definitely possible. Essentially this is where flexibility of your system is key, as this wouldn’t be possible for every piece of evidence, but definitely a possibility for some.

    Keep an eye out for more…

    We will be adding more Teacher Portfolio ideas, tips, tricks, and how-to guides in the near future. Check back here for more!

  • Teaching Portfolios: Do we need them?

    Ever since I became a teacher in 2009 I’ve been keeping everything I’ve done. For the first two years as a PRT (Provisionally Registered Teacher) it was pretty much part of the process of what was expected to keep track of my progress, my teaching, and my career. After that, it had become somewhat second nature and with the appraisal process becoming much less trustworthy with the introduction of the Education Council (renamed Teacher’s Council), schools and principals were encouraged to tighten their systems of appraisal and were expected to have their staff collect evidence that they were meeting each of the 12 criteria at the time.

    On top of this, teachers were also encouraged to carry out what has become known as “Teacher Inquiry” where teachers inquired into their own practise and how they might be better teachers for their classes and students.

    Although I’d known no different and all of this was second nature and just part of the job, it is a lot of work on top of what we have to do day in and day out – the core business of teaching. It quickly became one of the number one pieces of paperwork and time consumers for teachers.

    Along came Labour, winning the 2017 election and swiftly removing the ‘Education Council’ and returning it to the teachers. With the pay negotiations came the agreement to address the workload. And with that the appraisal process, of which teacher inquiry and portfolios had become synonymous with.

    In September 2019, the following paragraph was released from the Teaching Council website in regards to it’s requirements around portfolios and inquiry.

     

    The Teaching Council would like to clarify what it expects for the issue or renewal of a practising certificate.
    The issue or renewal of a practising certificate will be based on an endorsement made by the professional leader, based on the teacher’s participation in a system that includes:

    • an annual summary report that states whether or not the appraisee meets the Standards or Ngā Paerewa
      • the annual summary report is the only teacher documentation that is required for the purposes of the audit ERO undertakes on behalf of the Teaching Council
    • that appraisees have been observed once annually and involved in two conversations ideally with an appraiser who is familiar with the day to day work of the teacher
      • the Council has listened to the profession and accepts that one observation may suffice for fully certificated teachers.

    We do not ask (nor do we require) to see copies of the annual summary report, or any evidence. We rely on the professional judgement of the appraiser and the leader making the endorsement.

    While schools and centres are free to design their appraisal processes there is no requirement in law or by any agency that an appraisal system must include:

    1. an inquiry to be undertaken by teachers

    2. reports to be kept of all the professional development teachers do

    3. a portfolio of evidence compiled by teachers

     

    So essentially, it is not the Teacher’s Council that requires you to collect evidence, or complete an inquiry, but your school and/or principal. However, schools and principals feel that they have to get teachers to do these in order to have something to sign off on for the annual summary report. They don’t, but they might feel that they have to have some kind of evidence that teachers are meeting the criteria when signing off the annual summary report.

    Regardless, I return to my first question: Do we need them?

    The short answer is no. Not legally.

    But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them or keep them, as professionals and learners. Portfolios are a good way of collating experiences, celebrating successes, recording failures, and building a collection of your career as a teacher. They provide you with opportunities to reflect, question, and develop your own skills as a learner, and when done well, can be incredibly insightful and important to the practise of teaching.

    The long answer is yes. Yes definitely.

    But… but…. but they make so much more work! Yes. You’re right. But there are two things I say to that.

    Firstly: There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

    Secondly: Make the portfolio work for you, not you work for it.

    I have several ways of doing this which I plan on sharing over the course of the next few months. This is because I believe there are ways to make them easier to create and collect. I also believe they are worth maintaining even though they are not required legally. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother writing about this now when there is a chance that schools will start dropping the expectation that teachers maintain them. I believe that even if my school dropped them as a requirement, that I would still continue to collect and reflect on my teaching practise in the form of a portfolio.

  • Happy New Year: 2020 Vision

    At the end of last year (2019), the most searched term that lead to this website was ‘teaching portfolios” followed by “examples of teaching portfolios”. It prompted me to think about and reflect on how this website is being used, and the direction it could (or should) take.

    Don’t worry, it will continue to raise issues with current practise, policy, and politics, just as it did in the past, but I also want it to be a source of information, help, tips, tricks, and experience sharing with the people that use it – those being predominantly teachers.

    I have now been teaching for ten years, and I’m beginning to realise that not only do I have a lot of skills (especially in technology) that could be shared with other teachers to make their lives easier, but I also have a lot of experience that might also be useful for others to hear from.

    To that end, I want to begin providing not just my opinion on certain topics, but also some more “How-to” based articles along with tutorials and “Here’s what I do” posts.

    If there are any other topics you’d like to be covered more on this site, please leave a comment and I’ll consider it.

    Here’s hoping 2020 is a great year for you, whatever it might hold for you!

  • Teaching times Ten – Place Holders: Leaves and Rocks

    Teaching times Ten – Place Holders: Leaves and Rocks

    This morning I used the following mental picture to assist students in understanding what happens to numbers when they multiply it by ten. It also allowed for follow up for multiplying by 100.

    Example 1

    Here’s the set up.

    The fan is blowing hard, and pushes all the leaves against the far wall.

    The leaf can be moved closer to the fan by multiplying it by 10. Or; when you multiply it by ten, it moves across one column.

    Now, the fan is blowing pretty hard, and so that leaf is just going to get blown back against the wall. How can we stop it from being blown back?

    That’s right! Put a rock behind it. This rock happens to be of a similar shape to a zero. Coincidence!?

    Example 2

    Here’s another example with a two digit number. Children often get confused by 58 x 10 becoming 508, rather than 580.

    Follow the following images, as with above, to show how the leaves stick together. The five is being blown against the 8, and the 8 is against the wall.

     

    We multiply them by 10, and they both move across, sticking next to each other.

     

    That fan is pretty strong. It’ll blow those leaves right back against the wall if we don’t do something about it…

     

    That’s the trick! Add a rock and it keeps the leaves from blowing away!

    Extension:

    Make a link between multiplying by 10 having one rock, and there’s one zero in the number 10.

    What do you think will happen when we multiply by 100. How many squares can the leaves move? How many rocks do we need to fill the space? How many zeros in the number 100?

     

    Feel free to use this next time you’re teaching multiplying by ten!

    Enjoy!