Time/Portfolios...How do you balance?

I'm finishing my last class for my Pre-K Disabilities Endorsement. This week our discussion has been centered on portfolio construction. There are two common threads upon which most of my classmates agree:



1) Portfolios are a great way to document student growth.


2) Constructing portfolios takes an enormous amount of teacher time.


In the class I teach at the community college, I am constantly telling my students to ask themselves "So what?" We've learned a new concept. We've been reminded about something we already know, but haven't been implementing. So what? My purpose is in asking them "so what?" is to get them to think about the action component. We can learn many new ideas, but if we don't apply the concept or the theory to our practice, then so what?


So here's my "so what" about portfolio construction.


By no means do I think the students in my class have the greatest portfolio, there are always things at the end of the year that I wish I had done, but my assistant and I are getting better at it each year. The trouble with portfolios is that they are so vague. We have CARE portfolios, work files and portfolios...what goes where and what information is important? How do you categorize information? How do you access information needed daily? Where do you keep it?


I currently have three systems that I think help me organize my data.


1) The student's portfolio (This is 4 inch three ring binder. We put plastic page protectors in it at the beginning of the year. We add work samples inside the page protectors as the year progresses.)


2) The student's work folder (This is a file folder in my desk drawer.)


3) My anecdotal record book (This is a smaller 3 ring binder with page dividers. Each student has a section. I keep this behind my desk so I can easily pull it out at any point in the day and jot down an anecdotal or other data.)


Between the work files, the anecdotal record book and the portfolios, we usually have pretty good examples of the student's skill development and continuing challenges.


Here is the list of things that I keep in my student portfolios:

1)Digital pictures of classroom activities glued to construction paper. The child chooses a picture and then tells about the activity for a language sample. (we do approx 1 per month during small group time...by the end of the year I typically have 8-10 language samples)

2)Self portrait (one at the beginning of the year one at the end...again done during small group time)

3)Work samples from units (we pick 4 units from the year and keep 2 or 3 samples from each of the 4 units. Out of the two or three samples, the student then chooses one of them to talk about/reflect on. We end up with a total of 4 pieces for their student led conference.)

4)Any random/miscellaneous piece that I think really showcases skill development (i.e. one girl was drawing picture about a recent field trip to Mote Marine. I asked her if she could write the sounds for the pictures she was writing she wrote "stnra" and "rjn" (stingray and urchin)...I wasn't planning on keeping that piece when we started the activity,but for her I did because it was such a great example of her writing development. Another boy made the coolest picture of a robot by cutting and gluing scraps when we were making collages. I didn't plan on keeping his when we started but it was such a neat showcase of his fine motor and visual spatial skills that I kept his.)



In work folders I keep the following:

1) Brigance data (This is the assessment inventory that my district is currently using.)

2) Daily reports if the child has one

3) Any notes from home/school

4) Any discipline/referral documentation

5) Copies of IEPs and quarterly progress reports



In my anecdotal record book I keep:

1) Anecdotals (running log from day to day, I file these in the work file at the end of the year)


2) Any RtI data and intervention forms (when we go to CARE I pull the documentation and put it in my work file)


3 things help me the most with portfolios/work files.


1) My assistant rocks! I give her a list of the things I want in the portfolios and approximate time frames and she helps to remind me....we haven't done a language sample in a while, we don't have anything in the portfolio for this unit, etc. She also helps me file work samples during nap time when we have one of those rare days and every child is sleeping.


2) We schedule structured small groups every Tuesday and Thursday so if I need something for the portfolio we can build it into small group lessons during the day.


3) I almost always take at least some portion of my planning time. Pre-k teachers seem to always end up fighting for their plan time. Some teachers don't take it and some teachers can't take it. We need it. I build it into our schedule and take at least a portion of it almost every day. This is when I can look at work samples, file daily reports, write progress reports etc.






What do you include in your portfolios? What systems do you use to help you keep up with the work load? I'd love to hear others' ideas on how to keep authentic examples of student work in practical ways for teachers!

Visible Thinking

I learned about creating visible thinking routines at an early childhood International Baccalaureate conference I attended in 2007. I immediately saw the value of these routines and slowly began to implement some of them with my pre-k students. In a nutshell, using a visible thinking routine structures a lesson so that children can make connections and reach higher levels of thinking about a given topic.


Hands down, my favorite visible thinking routine is I See, I Think, I Wonder. This routine encourages students to make observations and connect their thinking and questions to the observations they have made.


I have created some very simple visual supports with Boardmaker software that I tape to chart paper to create a chart to record student responses. I laminated the visuals so that I can re-use them and simply tape them to a piece of chart paper. I draw lines to create three columns and I am ready to record.


I then choose a prompt. Sometimes it is a poster, sometimes it is a page from the story we are reading and sometimes it is a set of objects that we will using to create something. I set the stage and then guide the conversation according to the routine. "Raise a quiet hand if you can tell me something you see." "Sally saw a gray cloud, raise a quiet hand if you can tell me what that makes you think." "I see a gray cloud and I think it might rain, I wonder...."


Sometimes, I don't even do a "formal" lesson with this strategy, I just model it and encourage it within conversation. For example, my fish tank in the classroom was getting algae growth on the sides. While the students were napping, I ducked off campus to pick up a "sucker fish" from our local pet store. When I came back, I put the fish in the bag, in the fish tank so it could acclimate to our water temperature. It was also a natural prompt to generate conversation and thinking when the students woke up and saw it. I just followed the thinking routine guiding their comments and observations. What do you see? What does that make you think? And then finally modeling a wonder statement (which tends to be most difficult for my students) "I wonder if our tank will change?" and encouraging them to wonder also. They watched as we opened the bag and let the fish into the tank and then we started all over again.

Student Led Conferences

My school was recently authorized as an International Baccalaureate School. One of the requirements of IB schools is to hold Student Led Conferences each year.

At a student led conference, parents are invited to school for a conference where the student is in charge. The teacher does not lead or guide the conference, this job belongs to the child.

As an educator, I was excited about this event. As a pre-k educator, I was a little bit nervous. How would I teach children, especially children ages 3-5 with disabilties to lead their own conference? How would I ensure that the conference was student driven, but supported enough that it would be meaningful for 3-5 year olds?

We just finished our student led conferences. They were wonderful and worth every minute of planning involved!

I explained the prep work and student led conference experience to my husband (not a teacher) with a roller coaster analogy. You wait in line for an hour and the ride is over in 2 minutes. But, if you are a roller coaster junkie, it is well worth the wait. You'll wait time and again. Year after year. That's how our first student led conferences went. An incredible amount of planning time went into them, and they were over very quickly. But they were well worth the time invested and we'll willingly schedule them again, year after year.

Tips for successful conferences:

1) Keep work samples throughout the year.

We kept 2-3 pieces for each major theme and then let the child choose which piece s/he wanted to talk about. When they chose the piece for their conference, we completed a student reflection worksheet with Boardmaker icons. The reflection worksheet helps to guide some of the conversation with parents and children.

(Note: The students did not talk about every theme that we taught nor did they talk about every piece that we saved. They spoke about 4 pieces total. Three that they chose and the fourth was a book of their oral language samples about photos of class activities.)

2) Structure and organize the work samples in a way that is easy for students and families to use.

My students are familiar with Boardmaker icons. We created a "worklist" of 4 icons about work samples they were going to talk about. A matching icon was taped to the work sample. Students removed the icon from their worklist, matched it to the work sample and then talked about that piece (very similar to TEACCH task baskets).

Parents had clues from the reflection worksheet and the work sample to talk to their help prompt their child if s/he stopped talking.

(The picture on the top is the "work list." The picture in the center is a bucket that held the work samples and the work list. The picture on the bottom is the student reflection form.)

3) Walk away!

As the teacher in the classroom you are an authority figure. Walk away from the table! This leaves the parents as the only authority figure in close proximity. If you walk away, it minimizes role confusion between the authority status of the teacher and parent. (who will prompt, who will ask a question, when to wait, etc) It also minimizes the "on the spot" climate for the student. We observed more authentic conversation about work samples when the teacher was not at the table with the parent and child.

4) Let go!

The goal of our student led conferences was to generate meaningful conversation between the child and the parents about topics they had learned. The tools and the structure were in place....let the rest go. Let the conversation emerge.

5) Listen from a discreet distance.

You'll be amazed at what the children explain and how they explain it. Student led conferences are truly a rewarding experience for the child, the parent and the teacher.