TE 872-730, Spring 2009: MATC Portfolio Support Document
“Dear Reader” Introduction to Your Portfolio (2004)
At the very beginning of your portfolio, you need to orient the reader by introducing yourself
(very briefly). You need to provide important contextual information to help situate what the
reviewer is about to see and read in your portfolio—and hopefully understand and appreciate
about you as a professional and a graduate student. Introducing yourself indeed should be very
brief in “Dear Reader” because your entire portfolio and all of its contents will communicate in
considerable detail and in different ways who you are as a person and a professional. But it’s
still helpful to know, by brief introduction, who is speaking as the author of this portfolio that one
is about to turn the page and read.
Context matters! Where we work, with whom, with what kinds of students, what we teach, and
under what conditions or circumstances all have a significant impact and influence on our
decisions, goals, and practices in curriculum and teaching, and accomplishments as
professionals. However, when we consider the context in which we work, we need to remind
ourselves that there are multiple or many-layered contexts for each of us. We don’t work in a
single context; we work in several nested, overlapping contexts of expanding interests and
influences. For example, we all work within a global context, national context, state context,
district context, community context, school or institutional context, and a classroom or
instructional context where we teach. Whew!
Despite acknowledging all of these contexts in which we work and learn, in “Dear Reader” you
are to focus only on two (2) contexts and convey that contextual information to the reader as
briefly and succinctly as possible. Think of this contextual information as a descriptive overview
and clear snapshot of your teaching context. The National Board of Professional Teaching
Standards (NBPTS), for example, calls these two contexts, “Contextual Information” and
“Instructional Context.” We will use this same format and language for the “Dear Reader”
introduction to your portfolio.
(1)
Contextual Information describes the characteristics of one’s school district or
school: for example, demographics, racial and ethnic make-up of the student
population, district size, school setting (urban, suburban, rural, private, public,
alternative, etc.), socioeconomic factors, transient and dropout rates, and state and
district mandates. You should provide sufficient relevant information to provide the
reviewer with a clear picture of your teaching context. The Contextual Information
part of “Dear Reader” is about the big picture of your teaching environment. The
Instructional Context part (below) focuses on the particular context of your
classroom.
(2)
Instructional Context focuses on your classroom and should include those features
most relevant to your instructional choices. This information might include the
number and ages of students in your classroom; their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural
diversity; their ability range; social and behavioral considerations; special needs of
designated students; and anything else that would define the personality of your
class. Include the particular challenges this class presents. If you teach at the
middle-school or secondary level with more than one class, include in your
description the range and variations of your different classes as well as the subjects
you teach. If tracking is practiced in your school, you should also note that.
Mack-Kirschner (2003), in the National Board Certification Workbook, intentionally highlights the
word relevant about contextual information and instructional context:
A feature is relevant and should be included in your descriptions if it impacts your
teaching choices. For example, if students have different cultural backgrounds and you
include multicultural materials in your instructional choices, then you would include that
feature in your description….
…[I]t is insufficient to know the characteristics of your teaching context if you don’t put
that knowledge to good use. When the candidate connects the relevant characteristics of
the teaching context to the instructional choices, evidence of students’ achievement
usually follows. But if a candidate describes students’ needs and then ignores those
needs when making instructional choices, the [reviewers] don’t see evidence of
accomplished teaching….
Failure to use this information about your school setting and/or students to impact
instructional decisions is worse than not knowing about your students at all. An
accomplished teacher does not intentionally ignore an identified student need or
strength. What follows from increased knowledge is increased differentiated instruction.
(p. 51)
With respect to what then follows in your portfolio, how will you demonstrate that your instruction
and choices of curriculum and instructional strategies address these characteristics you
identified in the contextual information of “Dear Reader” and that are embedded in the goals of
the MACT program?
Format: “Dear Reader” can be no more than a single page with three distinct sections of a
succinct paragraph each, single-spaced. Here are some examples:
Example of an Introduction (by Abby):
Dear Reader,
I’m Abby Smith. I have been teaching fourth grade in a self-contained classroom for the
past three years in the Lansing Public School System, an urban school district. I
completed my undergraduate degree and initial certification at Michigan State University
in 2001 and substituted for a year in various local school districts until I found a full-time
teaching position. What I most enjoy about teaching in an urban setting is challenging
students to believe in themselves and their capacity to learn, and then witnessing their
rise to that challenge and genuine accomplishments. I trust that the evidence presented
in this portfolio will demonstrate this.
Example of Contextual Information (by Gary):
I teach in a year-round, multi-track, urban high school located on the fringe of Chicago.
The enrollment is 5,200 students in grades 9-12. The ethnic breakdown is as follows:
70% Hispanic, 12% African American, 9% Caucasian, 2% Native American Indian, 3%
Asian, and 4% “other.” 80% of our students receive free or reduced lunch. 74% of the
students are English Language Learners. The school is departmentalized by subject with
no official interdisciplinary teams. The average class size is 30, but my 9th-grade classes
are limited to 20 students each.
Example of Instructional Context (by LeTesha):
I teach 5 periods of 9th-grade English Language Arts, 3 classes designated regular and 2
classes designated honors. I don’t differentiate my instruction but hold all students to
high standards. This is a community that values math and science more than Language
Arts. The state mandate supports small class sizes for 9th-grade English, so I have only
100 students daily. We have mandated standards that I must address; however, these
are general statements of what students should know and be able to do, so my curricular
choices are mostly up to me. A particular challenge is the range of cultural backgrounds,
the language development levels, and the different literacy abilities and skill levels
students have upon entering my classes. The school administration values quiet, orderly
classrooms, while I value discussion and interaction. In additional to the curricula to
address the standards, I prepare my students for the spring standardized tests by
devoting two weeks to test-prep exercises as mandated by the district.
Try to be as objective as possible in your comments. It is not to your advantage to complain
about mandates or whine about politicians and all the things outsiders impose on teachers. This
is neither the time nor place to do that. While the larger context obviously has an impact and
often constrains our work versus supporting or enhancing it, a professional portfolio is the time
and place to provide evidence of how you help your students learn as a consequence of your
curricular and instructional choices and actions, and in your other critical roles and
responsibilities as a professional working with colleagues and students’ families.
Gathering and analyzing this information may be important contextual information for the
reviewers, but it is even more important that teachers know and understand the contexts in
which they teach. “We should make instructional choices based on an analysis of the available
information and an understanding of our entire teaching context” (Mack-Kirschner, 2003; p. 50).
And once knowing this, we are morally obligated as professionals to respond to our students in
educationally sound, defensible ways.
Mack-Kirschner, A. (2003). The National Board Certification workbook: How to prepare your
portfolio. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
[adapted from MACT-PortfolioReq-WM-Introduction-DearReader-04-17-04.doc and posted to TE 872 ANGEL
site, 02-09-09, with great appreciation to Dr. Wanda May for her careful and conscientious work on this
document]