Portfolio Assessment
The Professional Portfolio will encompass all units of study in Semester 2 of Year 4 of the Bachelor of Education. Through the Portfolio you will be able to present evidence of your competence in planning for teaching and learning, analysing teaching practice, assessing for impact on student learning and reflecting for improvement and change.
The Professional Portfolio
Typically a Professional Portfolio for a graduate teacher will contain the following:
Hurdle Requirements
- your final PP teaching report
- your final ACP report and perhaps reference to a previous ACP project
Part 1:
1. A statement of personal educational philosophy including professional educational goals
2. Description of the educational setting in Year 4
3. Three caseswith commentaryprompted by the three domains of the AITSL Standards(each 500 words approx.):
a) professional practice
b) professional knowledge
c) professional engagement
Personal Educational Philosophy including professional educational goals
As concisely as possible (one page max), state clearly what are the principles and values that inform your teaching. Consider:
- students and learning
- teachers, teaching and assessment
- relationships between teachers and students
- what classrooms and schools should be like - your approach to classroom organisation and management
- diversity - cultural and educational - and how you respond e.g. inclusive curriculum and practice
- your social action commitment - e.g. to educational equity
- Very brief statements of your personal and professional goals
Short term goals - in the next one to two years, consider:
- personal classroom competence
- professional development
- relationships with a team of colleagues
- becoming part of a school community - being with students, parents, etc.
Long term goals - in the next three to five years:
- teaching achievements
- curriculum leadership at grade or subject level
- activity and leadership at school level - e.g. in school-wide planning, on a School Council, etc.
Be prepared to discuss/explain/defend one to three key points of your philosophy during your Portfolio presentation.
Description of the Educational Setting
Short (half to one page) outline of your practice in Year 4. Refer to:
- the school and its community
- class level(s), subjects, class organisation, teacher teams
- nature of school curriculum, charter priorities
- approach to teaching adopted in school
Case and Commentary Writing
The three domains of the AITSL Standards will be the focus for the cases, which document your evidence about competent practice. While we recommend that each of the three cases you will write should be about 500 words, their most important characteristics are that the commentary is complete and convincing.
While case writing can serve many purposes - for thinking about and solving problems and dilemmas for example - at the end of your undergraduate course, the aim of the case writing will be for you to present carefully written and detailed accounts of the reasons why you regard yourself as ready to join the teaching profession. Accordingly, we suggest that you spend time crafting the cases over a few days. Read and revise the cases so that the meanings the reader gains are those you want to transmit. Remember, an interested reader of the cases may be a school principal and the other members of an interview panel!
To help you in the crafting the cases, you might want to think about asking a graduating colleague to give feedback. In addition, your Year 4 mentor teacher might be able to read the cases critically and might be well placed to suggest improvements.
A useful way to think about the cases is that they are answers to questions that you might be asked in interviews for teaching positions in the weeks after you have finished your five weeks in schools. The cases are opportunities for you to show your own preferred teaching approaches, the language about learning and teaching that you value and importantly, the kind of colleague you would be for fellow teachers in a school team.
In order to present clear and comprehensive cases that evidence thorough understanding, theorising as well as willingness and capability to change practice, use of the Praxis Inquiry protocol is strongly encouraged.
PLEASE NOTE:
- Case 1:The APSGT Standards being assessed are 2.5 and 2.6
- Case 2: The APSGT Standards being assessed are 3.7 and 5.5
- Case 3: The APSGT Standards being assessed are 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 (address at least three)
Part 2:
AfGT (Assessment for Graduate Teaching)
ELEMENT 1: PLANNING FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
In this Element, the focus is on the pre-service teacher's capacity to understand the context of their placement and their planning for student learning in relation to the specific goal/s of the sequence of lessons, and the ways in which they will judge their impact on student learning. PSTs will need to pass Element 1 to demonstrate that the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate Teachers (AITSL, 2016) are met.
The APSGT Standards being assessed in Element 1 are: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 4.1, 4.5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4.
ASSESSMENT TASKS & SUB-TASKS OF ELEMENT 1
1. Describe the students in your class and analyse the factors which may affect their learning in this context.
2. Using evidence, justify what the students are ready to learn.
3. Incorporate your knowledge of research into how students learn, to justify your intended teaching approaches.
4. Following the steps below (4a - 4f), outline a sequence of between 5 and 8 lessons that you will teach the class:
a) Identify the overarching goal for your sequence of lessons.
b) Specify the learning goal/s or intention/s for each of the individual lessons.
c) Provide the details of the relevant curriculum document or policy to which the lessons relate.
d) Explain the main teaching strategies that are planned to inclusively engage and challenge diverse learners to achieve these goals with specific reference to pedagogical content knowledge
e) Justify the resources to be used, including Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), to complement content and teaching strategies, providing intellectual challenge and supporting student achievement of learning goals for each lesson.
f) Explain the strategies that you will use to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICTs (where ICTs are used).
5. Explain your assessment plan, which includes formative, diagnostic and summative assessment, opportunities for timely feedback, and assessment moderation.
In this Element, the focus is on the pre-service teacher's capacity to understand the implications of pedagogical practice on student learning and to demonstrate that they meet the APSGTs that relate to pedagogical practice. PSTs will gather data (via video, mentor, student, and peer (if available) feedback), on two Key Pedagogical Segments (KPSs). The first KPS should be early in the sequence of lessons; the second should be towards the end of the sequence of lessons. PSTs will be required to analyse their teaching, showing consideration for the complexity and interrelation of learning and teaching, reflection on the learning goals, and the role of professional judgements that have been made in their teaching. PSTs will need to pass Element 2 to demonstrate that the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate Teachers (AITSL, 2016) are met.
The APSGT Standards being assessed in Element 2 are: 1.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, 4.2, 4.4 and 6.3.
In order to complete the assessment tasks, the following activities need to be undertaken:
- Video-record sections of two lessons that you have taught, ensuring compliance with the requirements in Section 4 of the *AfGT Manual: Procedures and Guidelines for Video-recording.
- Choose a segment of 6 to 10 minutes in each recording that demonstrate an aspect of your teaching and the students engaged in learning. These segments are referred to as your two Key Pedagogical Segments (KPSs). Your recordings should be unedited because they are capturing key moments in your teaching and of the students' learning.
- Seek mentor teacher feedback, student feedback, and peer feedback (if available), for the two KPSs. (The written feedback from your mentor teacher will need to be submitted for each of your KPSs.)
ASSESSMENT TASKS & SUB-TASKS OF ELEMENT 2
1 Write a reflective commentary about your two video segments that includes references to specific incidents and feedback received.
Specifically, you are required to:
a) Evaluate your teaching strategies in terms of impact on student learning.
b) Evaluate your organisation of activities.
c) Evaluate your verbal and non-verbal communication for clarity of instruction and impact on student engagement.
d) Appraise your strategies for supporting student wellbeing and safety in the classroom
e) Appraise the challenge for a range of students' needs, abilities and interests.
2 Justify the adjustments you have made to your teaching based on what was happening with the learners, and your understanding of research into how students learn:
- Specify the changes you made; and
- The reasons for these changes.
ELEMENT 3: ASSESSING FOR IMPACT ON STUDENT LEARNING
In this Element, the focus is on the pre-service teacher's capacity to analyse the implementation of a targeted summative assessment task and determine the extent to which all students in the class have been able to achieve the overarching learning goals of the sequence of lessons. PSTs will need to pass Element 3 to demonstrate that the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate Teachers (AITSL, 2016) are met.
The APSGT Standards being assessed in Element 3 are: 1.2, 1.5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4.
ASSESSMENT TASKS & SUB-TASKS OF ELEMENT 3
1. Produce a data display that supports rigorous interpretation of whole class responses to the summative assessment task.
2. Critically analyse the assessment data you collected from the whole class and discuss your findings considering aspects such as distribution of scores, patterns, trends and unexpected results.
3. Justify the (de-identified) written feedback provided to selected students about their learning using your critical analysis of the assessment data.
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of your use of assessment strategies, supporting your evaluation with your understanding of research into how students learn
5. Analyse the assessment moderation processes you undertook to determine student attainment and evaluate the efficacy of these processes.
6. Justify the next steps you would take for teaching your three selected students and the class as a whole using your evaluation of assessment data along with your understanding of research into how students learn.
AfGT Manual for Students and Assessment Task Visual Sequence:
These documents have been provided to students in the AfGT folder of VUC.
Please note: The AfGT Manual includes tables 1, 2 and 3, which must be used for inclusion in the portfolio. The three tables must also be uploaded to the VUC assessment drop box at least one week before your scheduled portfolio presentation. Table 2 will include the file name/details of your two video segments. Mentor feedback on Element 2 must also be uploaded with this submission.