Requirements / Rubric/ Self Evaluation

Please include a completed (graded) form in your Portfolio.

Name Date

Portfolios Consist of ALL work - plus Final Exam
For ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO insert your text in YELLOW sections
Portfolio includes all work: 10
Final Exam
To be posted the last week of class / Weekly Chapter Quizzes / Attendance / Professionalism / Teach Chapter Summaries/ Class Notes / Reading Autobiography / Teacher Profile / Case Study / Field Experiences
Discussion Board / Reflective Journals
In class reflections / Internet Sites List / Supplemental Resources/ Book List
10 / 15 / 15 / 10 / 20 / 20 / 20 / 30 / 15 / 15 / 10 / 10
8 / 15 / 10 / 20 / 20 / 20 / 30 / 10 / 8 / 10 / 10
Deduct points for all late work. / Minimal
60-69% / Moderate
70-89% / Exemplary
90-100%
L / K / J
Attendance - 15 /15
Deduct 5 points for each day missed. You may make these up by writing a summary of the chapter or answering questions on the chapter you missed. You are responsible for the information whether or not you attend class.
Mitchell Warfield
5/06/08
Week 9 reflection
I failed to attend class this week because I passed out after football. I however did read the chapter so I can reflect on the chapter instead. We are on chapter 8, study skills. One of the main points brought out in the PowerPoint that was sent out is that good study skills start with good listening skills. Also, good note taking skills are important. It is impossible to go home and study if you do not have good notes and you did not listen and retain knowledge very well in the classroom. The most important study skill according to the book is previewing. Previewing involves going through the books and reading titles and subtitles and looking at pictures and charts and various information so we have a general idea of what we are about to get into. It helps us organize our thoughts. Also, when teachers present students with graphical organizers it helps students organize thoughts in their minds and hence study more productively. I did not realize that an estimated 90 percent of information we retain is lost. That is a very interesting fact and makes me feel as if studying is useless for learning except just passing tests the next day. Also, learned images may decay over time and become something totally different than what was first perceived. The fact earlier learning gets covered up by later learning makes perfect sense as well. Students can use mnemonics to help them learn information. Mnemonics is the use of key words or short sayings to remember information. However, I believe learning like this and not truly learning the information will be good for passing tests but not good for being smart. If all these study skills are used I believe a student can become very successful. However only 50 percent of schools offer study skills classes and as little as 11 percent actually require the students to take the class.
Reading Autobiography
Assignment
PtsPossible20 / Assignment – 1st class. Tell about yourself and reading. How did you learn to read. Were/Are you a good reader. A struggler. What are your feelings about your personal reading experiences? / Minimal
1 paragraph / Met Requirements / Exemplary.
Complete. On time.Detailed. Neatly presented. Assignment is self explanatory to an individual who is not familiar with the assignment. It must include directions, complete and well thought out answers and reflections.)
Reading Autobiography – 20/20
Enter Reading autobiography here. You must follow directions. 2 pages, double spaced.
My name is Mitch, and I’m a junior here at UWA. I began my reading life as a very proficient reader. My mom would read to me every night growing up and I would read to her and I became very proficient in my pre-schooling years. I went to Kindergarten for a few days and then they moved me to a first grade reading class and I was in there for a few days and they sent me to a second grade reading class. I then stayed 2 grade levels above the rest of my regular class. I continued this trend till 4th grade where I should have been in a sixth grade reading class (I had already taken 5th grade reading in 3rd grade), but the class was in a whole other school. In effect I had to redo my 4th grade reading class two different times and my 5th grade reading class two different times. I made A’s in all the classes but during this time I developed a severe hatred of reading. I read Gone with the Wind 4 times during this 2 year stretch for different reading and history classes. I can honestly say that was the last book I read from cover to cover. In 6th grade I started to read a book but then got bored with it before the first chapter ended and just decided to guess on questions and make a bad grade. In seventh grade however, I became very efficient at getting on the internet and finding sparknotes, or cliffnotes that would summarize the book for you. After this my reading laziness became so severe I would even be too lazy to read the complete sparknotes and only make decent grades. I passed all my high school English and Literature classes as well as all my college English and Literature classes using this method. I don’t plan on opening a book anytime soon but I do read the newspaper on a fairly regular basis and I love to read internet articles about anything and everything. I don’t believe I am a very good reader anymore, but I think I’m good enough to get by as a P.E. teacher.
Teach Chapter /Summaries / Class Notes
Assignment
PtsPossible20 / Take notes in class.
Teach a chapter – provide handouts printed for note-taking and in advance on e-mail. Each student will sign up for one chapter of the text and teach that chapter to the class on the assigned date. Students are encouraged to be creative in their teaching. Students will create a handout for each student in the class outlining the chapter lesson and related materials. Keep all of the Chapter Summaries along with your weekly class notes. / Minimal notes. Sloppy presentation / Presented chapter – notes come directly from bold headings in textbook. Used few examples and little or no discussion.
Collected and took notes on most class meetings. / Presented individual Chapter interactively. Discussed, gave examples, used interesting anecdotes. Collected all Chapter Summaries / Took notes in class. Neatly presented.
Teach Chapter/Summaries / Class Notes – 20/20
Enter the notes for the chapter that you taught. (Remember that each person is required to send out chapter notes to the whole class BEFORE their lesson.) Keep a copy of the notes for all the other chapters in your Portfolio Notebook.

Teacher Profile
Assignment
PtsPossible20 / Prepare a profile of an excellent teacher of literacy (describe classroom context, analyze general teaching, and analyze reading techniques) What strategies does the teacher use to enhance learning? How do students learn? What is the overall attitude toward learning in the class? / Didn’t do it. / Did it. Included most of the requirements. / Complete.
Followed directions. Recognized traits of an exemplary teacher of reading in a content area.
Teacher Profile - 20/20
Enter your teacher profile here. You are to observe an exemplary teacher. Follow directions and answer all the guiding questions (2 pages double spaced)
This past Friday I was lucky enough to observe an afternoon of my 2nd grade reading teachers reading classes. Mrs. White was my reading teacher when I was in Kindergarten. This was the last teacher I had that really inspired me to read and even had me reading outside of the classroom and outside of required reading. She uses many methods of motivation, comfort, and imagination provocation to get her students to read.
It starts with her classroom environment. Her classroom is very different from what a normal classroom would be. First, all her “desks” are actually a variety of comfortable chairs of various sorts with clipboards to write on. I remember my desk when I went through was a bean bag and I loved it. Also, she has an entire wall of bookshelves filled with books from roof to floor. Her classroom is very bright and colorful and full of various quotes from famous athletes and actors about reading. This environment really fosters reading and I believe this is an important reason she is such a good reading teacher.
The second aspect that makes her a great reading teacher is her understanding that boys are not girls and girls are not boys and even boys and girls have different interests than other boys and girls. She does not ask her male students to read anything that would turn them off from reading simply because of the girly content. I remember when I was coming through her class I must have read 100 books on football and baseball. Students love her so much that she asks the students to give her past books that they have read to donate to the classroom library and this adds to her huge library of books. I actually found a couple of books I had remembered reading and donating in her bookshelves. Cooler than that, when I went to observe one of her students was reading one of my books that I donated and remembered loving. This varied collection gives her students the ability to find a book they possibly would really enjoy and this helps the students love reading.
Possibly the most important reason she was an amazing teacher was her ability to motivate and provoke your imagination. Constantly while reading along with her class she would ask them to close their eyes and she would go through a scene imagining with them. Also, while reading on their own in their own books, she would ask the students to draw a picture from a scene from the book on their clipboard using crayons. However, she did not post these pictures on a wall or anything because she doesn’t want one person’s picture to infringe on another students imagination who might be reading the same book. This is a very interesting concept and something I never thought about but agree with. She participated in the accelerated reader program where you take tests on her computer on the books you read and you get a certain number of points for different prizes. The prizes range from free time to read to a break during the class. Also, if the class scored a certain number of points through-out the semester she would throw them a end of semester party. These are a few of her motivational techniques along with the quotes from famous athletes and stars.
Mrs. White’s appearance is very unique and I believe this might be part of the reason the students love her so much too. She is a petite lady with huge white hair and a wardrobe similar to that of the lady from the magic school bus. She has won teacher of the year at the school many years and doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon because she loves her class and students so much every year. If more teachers were like Mrs. White, I believe more students would be
Case Study
Assignment
PtsPossible30 / Conduct a case study of a struggling (secondary) student: provide student information, assessments; intervention strategies. / Student Profile
Who? What? Where? When? Why? / Assessments
How did you identify the student’s needs? / Reflection
What did you discover based on the assessments you administered? / Plan
What will you recommend/do to help this student overcome reading deficiencies? / Lesson Plan
Write a lesson using the lesson plan format based on the student’s reading needs. / Didn’t do it. Very little information. Does not appear to have worked with a learner. / Met minimal requirements. No depth. Did not refer to text and classroom discussions. / Exemplary. Detailed. Used reference to class and textbook. Made progress with student. Shows understanding of different parts of the case study.
Case Study - 30/30
Enter Case Study here. Three parts, 10 points each, minimum 2-3 pages each. Follow Case Study directions.
Student Profile
The student I chose to conduct my case study on was Bryce Zarr. His mom and my mom are good friends and used to teach together many years back. He is 9 years old and in the 3rd grade at Rock Quarry Elementary School in Tuscaloosa. His mom told my mom about how he was struggling in reading and my mom told me this when I told her I needed a kid to conduct a case study on.
Bryce is a good kid and really enjoys school. His favorite part of school is just seeing his friends, and of course PE and Lunch. His mom, Tracy, is a very active mother who has been reading to him since he was very little. He is very blessed in this aspect. She would do whatever it takes for her son Bryce to do well in school.
I contacted her to see if there is some way we could make it work where I meet with Bryce once a week. We worked out details where she could meet me at the public library and drop him off so I could tutor him. This worked out nicely and we started to meet once a week on Wednesday nights around 6 or so. Tracy, Bryce’s mom, would usually go shopping while we worked and she really enjoyed her time off from Bryce.
We picked out a nice quiet room together in the back of the library. I’m not really good with kids so it was very awkward for me at first. I didn’t really know Bryce personally but would get to know him good through the course of my study. I explained to him that I’m supposed to be tutoring him in reading and he explained to me that he didn’t need a tutor, and that he can read faster than all his classmates.
I picked out a book from the library, “Summer of the Monkeys”. I remembered reading this book when I was in third grade as part of an assignment and I really didn’t know any other book that is supposed to be for third graders so we read that one. I had him read the first couple pages aloud and he could buzz through the words. I was very impressed and began thinking he doesn’t need a tutor. After the first couple pages he read I told him to read the rest of the chapter to himself while I read to myself. To my astonishment he finished the chapter before me and I began feeling dumb.