17
Teaching Licensure Programs
2012-2013
updated July 25, 2012
Contents
Introduction 3
What is a portfolio? 3
Why is a portfolio needed? 4
Getting Started 5
Portfolio Structure 7
Directed Response Folio 7
Standards-Based 9
Performance-Based 10
The Portfolio Process 10
Submitting an Artifact to an Instructor 11
Artifact Assessment 12
Checkpoints 13
Checkpoint Submission 14
Employment Portfolio 15
Conclusion 16
Appendix A: Program Self-Enrollment Codes 17
Appendix B: Transfer Student Information 18
Appendix C: Standards Alignment 19
Appendix D: Choice Artifacts 23
Appendix E: General Outcome Rubrics for CSU Outcomes 26
Appendix F: TaskStream Technical Information 39
Introduction
What is a portfolio?
In the Cleveland State College of Education and Human Services, you will gather a portfolio of work that you produce throughout your program. Your portfolio is a crucial part of your teacher education experience and serves as a significant method of demonstrating how you meet the standards of the Cleveland State teacher preparation program. Over the past 12 years of experience using portfolios in our teacher education programs, we have found that candidates who understand the process complete the requirements thoughtfully. When done properly, the portfolio is a valuable tool for fostering and documenting professional growth.
We want the portfolio process to be a positive experience for you. Toward that goal, this handbook provides:
· An explanation of the purpose of the portfolio
· Clarification of the portfolio process at Cleveland State
· Technical information about managing your portfolio
· Additional resources to help you understand and make the best use of the portfolio
In the most general terms, a portfolio is documentation of professional growth and competence. We have found that candidates have different ideas when they hear the word portfolio. Let’s examine some common misconceptions that people have about CSU portfolios.
Some people think of a portfolio as a scrapbook of memorabilia. Scrapbooks contain photos, captions, and snippets of text. Scrapbooks rely heavily on visual appeal and on the use of brief, punchy statements to generate an emotional response. This is NOT what your CSU portfolio will be. Although you might include some photos in your portfolio, the contents of your portfolio must offer a reviewer insight into your knowledge, skills, and attitudes about teaching (called “dispositions” in education). Photos with captions alone are not substantial enough to offer insight into your thinking or evidence of your skills.
Some people think of a portfolio as a file cabinet or notebook containing a complete collection of assignments from all your courses. This idea of a portfolio treats everything equally with the ultimate goal of gathering as much material as possible. This is NOT what your CSU portfolio will be. Your portfolio will be selective and include only a small subset of your finished work. Some assignments will be required to be in your portfolio. Other assignments will be included because you have chosen them as evidence to demonstrate something important about your skills or knowledge.
Some people think of a portfolio as a showcase of best work, similar to a portfolio that an artist or a designer might use to win a contract with a client. This idea of a portfolio includes only the artist’s best work and does not document the prior work it took to reach that level of ability. In addition, the artist herself chooses how to organize the portfolio. This is NOT what your CSU portfolio will be. Your portfolio will include high-quality pieces of work, but it will contain work that you produce at every stage in your teacher preparation program to demonstrate your growing competence in the CSU Outcomes, a set of standards that identify and describe the essential knowledge, skills and dispositions you need to start your teaching career. At each transition point you must meet expectations for that phase of your program, but we expect that you will continue to develop throughout your program. At the end of your program you will produce an employment portfolio that will include only your best work to market yourself to potential employers.
In summary, your CSU portfolio will have the following characteristics:
· The portfolio will contain documents that provide substantial evidence of your knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to the CSU Outcomes.
· The portfolio will contain only selected work identified by the faculty and by the candidates.
· The portfolio will document professional growth by including work generated at all stages of the teacher preparation program.
Why is a portfolio needed?
You may be asking yourself, “If I already receive course grades, isn’t that enough to document my professional growth? Why do I need a portfolio?” The faculty believe that the portfolio is a useful component in the CSU teacher preparation programs.
The portfolio process helps teacher candidates in the following ways:
· The process provides you with an overview of the requirements that must be completed prior to licensure and gives you an easy way to track your progress towards completion.
· The portfolio allows you to identify areas of strength and to determine areas where you need to make additional efforts. The process requires you to reflect on the documents in light of the CSU Outcomes. The portfolio provides a broader perspective than an individual course and allows faculty to see that you are prepared at key transition points to move to the next level of your teacher preparation program.
· The process is fair for all candidates because the portfolio uses common assessments given across all sections of a course.
· At the end of your program, the portfolio helps you demonstrate whether you have satisfactorily met all program standards and thus qualify for endorsement of your licensure application.
· The portfolio will provide you with materials you can use in an employment portfolio to show potential employers your skills.
· The reflective components of the portfolio process will help become more aware of the CSU Outcomes and prepare you for interview questions that are likely to be similar to the outcomes.
The process helps college faculty in the following ways:
· The common assessments included in the portfolio facilitate conversation among faculty about course objectives, offer clear guidance for part-time instructors, and provide program teams with a measure of how courses and assignments collectively prepare candidates for success in their student teaching internships and beyond.
· The portfolio provides a comprehensive tool to make informed decisions about candidates’ readiness to progress through the teacher preparation program.
· The electronic portfolio process provides the faculty with a simplified system of gathering, aggregating, and analyzing assessment data within and across programs. Analysis of these data allows faculty to identify program strengths and areas for improvement.
Getting Started
The following groups of students will use TaskStream (http://www.taskstream.com) to submit and manage their portfolios:
· Undergraduate students enrolled in EDB 300 in Fall 2012 or later
· Graduate early childhood licensure students who took ECE 500 in Fall 2012 or later
· Graduate special education licensure students who took ESE 500 in Fall 2012 or later
· Students in the MUST or Chinese Licensure programs beginning Summer 2012 or later
· Students who transferred to the College of Education and Human Services in Fall 2012 or later. Transfer students should refer to Appendix A for details about how the portfolio process works with transfer courses.
Any student who is not included in one of these groups and who has already submitted artifacts through ePortfolio will continue to use the ePortfolio system. (Refer to ePortfolio handbooks and instructional “Quicksheets” to help you navigate and use ePortfolio. You can find these materials online at http://www.csuohio.edu/cehs/students/eport.html)
All students using TaskStream will be charged a portfolio lab fee which covers the cost of a 4-year subscription to TaskStream. This fee will automatically be charged to EDB 300 students. Transfer students who receive credit for EDB 300 must visit the Education Student Services Center to pay this fee. Graduate licensure students will receive information from their program coordinator about how to pay the fee.
Once you have paid the fee, you will receive a key code to activate your TaskStream account. To begin your subscription activation, go to the TaskStream Home Page. Below the login area, click the “Subscribe/Renew Today” link.
Select the option that applies to you. First time subscribers should select the “Create a new TaskStream subscription” option. You will use Subscription Option 2 because you will be provided with a key code by either your EDB 300 instructor or the Education Student Services Center.
Follow the directions to complete the subscription purchase or activation process. Please ensure that you enter a valid email address so TaskStream can send your username and password to you. All email addresses are confidential and will not be made available to third parties. TaskStream recommends that you add the , , and email addresses to your email contacts so that TaskStream emails are not blocked by spam software or computer settings.
Once your TaskStream account is activated, you must enter the enrollment code for your program. The self-enrollment code for all programs is found in Appendix A. To enroll in your program, simply access your TaskStream account and then click on the “Enter Code” button on the left side to enter the code.
When prompted, enter the program code and click “Search.” You can then review the program information that corresponds to the code you entered. To be enrolled in the program, click “Enroll.” If you enroll yourself into an inactive program, the program will not appear on your home page until the Cleveland State Program Manager activates the program. If you switch programs, you should contact Heather Gallacher at or 216-687-3743 to be switched into the new program.
If you have any technical questions about TaskStream, you can always contact the TaskStream Mentoring Services at or at 800-311-5656.
Portfolio Structure
As you move through your program, you will develop and submit evidence to demonstrate that you meet the 12 CSU Outcomes. Each piece of evidence is called an artifact. Course instructors assess artifacts using a rubric specific to that artifact. At various “checkpoints” that mark significant transition points in your program, you will submit additional artifacts, and a faculty evaluator will check the whole portfolio to ensure that you have met the criteria to move to the next phase of your program. To complete your program and receive endorsement for licensure, you must meet the requirements for all artifacts.
Directed Response Folio
When you click on your program, you will see a list of all portfolio requirements for that program along the left side of your screen.
These requirements comprise a structure called a Directed Response Folio (DRF). By clicking on any requirement, you will see the course number where the assignment will be submitted and a brief overview of the assignment. All assignments will be scored using a rubric which you can also view. Many requirements also include detailed directions for the assignment; if not, your instructor will provide you with additional details.
The DRF is divided into three phases: 1) pre-practicum, 2) pre-student teaching, and 3) pre-licensure. During each phase, you will find the following types of submissions:
· Required Artifacts. For selected courses, there are common artifacts that will be submitted directly to your instructor and assessed by your instructor using a rubric for that assignment. These artifacts must be submitted and graded in TaskStream. Each required artifact will be designated as “meets” or “does not meet” requirements. If you have a required artifact that “does not meet” requirements, you will not be able to proceed to the next phase of your program.
· Choice Artifacts. When your portfolio is ready to be checked to move to the next phase of your program (checkpoint assessment), you will choose two additional artifacts to submit and you will write a reflection explaining how these artifacts demonstrate your competence in the CSU Outcomes. These artifacts will be assessed by an assigned faculty checkpoint evaluator.
· No Submission Requirements. In some phases of your program, there will be assessments imported directly into your DRF. These might include performance assessments from field experiences, GPA calculations, or Praxis test scores.
· Summative Checkpoint Self-Analysis. In the final step before checkpoint assessment, you will review your assessments compared to the CSU outcomes to determine areas of strength and areas for improvement. You will use this analysis to determine strategies for your own professional development during the next program phase.
Portfolio Standards
The portfolio structure is designed to ensure that you have mastered standards established by CSU to identify the skills and knowledge needed by beginning teachers. These standards, called CSU Outcomes (listed in Table 1), are based on a conceptual model of the TEACHER AS A RESPONSIVE, REFLECTIVE PROFESSIONAL—A PARTNER IN LEARNING. Each outcome is comprised of knowledge, skills, and dispositions which you must demonstrate. These are goals toward which you will work in your teacher preparation program. Portfolio requirements have been carefully selected to provide evidence that you have met all requirements of each Outcome. The scoring rubric for each artifact is linked to these outcomes, and TaskStream allows you to you see your scores in relation to each outcome.
Table 1: Cleveland State University Teacher Education Outcomes
Cleveland State University – Teacher Education Outcomes /1. Personal Philosophy. The CSU teacher education student articulates a personal philosophy of teaching and learning that is grounded in theory and practice.
2. Social Foundations. The CSU teacher education student possesses knowledge and understanding of the social, political, and economic factors that influence education and shape the worlds in which we live.
3. Knowledge of Subject Matter and Inquiry. The CSU teacher education student understands content, disciplinary concepts, and tools of inquiry related to the development of an educated person.
4. Knowledge of Development and Learning. The CSU teacher education student understands how individuals learn and develop and that students enter the learning setting with prior experiences that give meaning to the construction of new knowledge.
5. Diversity. The CSU teacher education student understands how individuals differ in their backgrounds and approaches to learning and incorporates and accounts for such diversity in teaching and learning.
6. Learning Environment. The CSU teacher education student uses an understanding of individual and group motivation to promote positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
7. Communication. The CSU teacher education student uses knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster inquiry, collaboration, and engagement in learning environments.
8. Instructional Strategies. The CSU teacher education student plans and implements a variety of developmentally appropriate instructional strategies to develop performance skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, as well as to foster social, emotional, creative, and physical development.
9. Assessment. The CSU teacher education student understands, selects, and uses a range of assessment strategies to foster physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development of learners and gives accounts of students’ learning to the outside world.
10. Technology. The CSU teacher education student understands and uses up-to-date technology to enhance the learning environment across the full range of learner needs.
11. Professional Development. The CSU teacher education student is a reflective practitioner who evaluates his/her interactions with others (e.g., learners, parents/guardians, colleagues and professionals in the community) and seeks opportunities to grow professionally.
12. Collaboration and Professionalism. The CSU teacher education student fosters relationships with colleagues, parents/guardians, community agencies, and colleges/universities to support students’ growth and well being.
Besides the 12 Cleveland State Outcomes, there are many other educator standards, including the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession (OSTP), the Praxis domains that guide the ETS Praxis II Principles of Learning and Teaching examinations, and the new teacher standards established by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC). In addition, there are subject specific standards developed by the Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs) that support different teaching content areas such as mathematics, language arts, science, and physical education. You will be introduced to these standards in your program-specific courses.