Running head: Finishing Up 1

Finishing Up
Ashlynn Griffith
National University
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Abstract
The following is my final reflection on the creation of my Professional Development Quest

Portfolio (PDQP). Within this reflection, I will comment on my journey and the changes that I

made throughout the project. I will also reflect on my achievements, frustrations, and lessons that

I learned while developing my PDQP. I will then discuss the implications of this e-portfolio

project on my future teaching practices. Finally, I will offer my advice to future students now

that I have finalized my PDQP.

For the past four weeks, I have persevered as I have developed my Professional

Development Quest Portfolio. I read the text Developing a Professional Teaching Portfolio: A

Guide for Success by Patricia M. Constantino and Marie N. De Lorenzo, studied the California

Standards for the Teaching Profession, read and reviewed six articles outside of the course

materials, developed a web page, populated the web page with numerous artifacts for each CSTP

domain, and analyzed each artifact within the text of my web page and within six Literature

Reviews. Now that the hard work has paid off and my PDQP is complete, the time has come for

me to reflect on the process and offer my recommendations to future students who will be

completing this project after me.

My Comments

This journey has been challenging and time-consuming, but well worth it. “The art of

collecting, reviewing, and reflecting on portfolio artifacts is consistently viewed as satisfying and

renewing by teacher candidates and in-service candidates alike” (Costantino, 2009, p.5). I relied

heavily upon the course textbook and California Standards for the Teaching Profession while

selecting my artifacts, populating my portfolio, and writing about my artifact selection, and

although the work was difficult, I did feel a sense of satisfaction after I had finished populating

and reflecting on each domain.

While all National courses move at a brisk pace, the timeline of assignment due dates for

this class seemed to be more strenuous than others. In other courses, I had been able to manage

my time much differently than in this course. I used to be able to post and respond to discussion

board posts during the week and then complete all the writing assignments over the weekend.

This worked very well for me because I work full time and coach after school, so I do not always

have much time to devote to my coursework during the week. My former strategy did not work
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for this course, though. In order to be able to post a rough draft of my PDQP to my peers early in

the week, I had to put in hours of time most days throughout the week populating my domains

and writing the narratives within the web page. It was also helpful for me to have all coursework

for a week completed by Saturday, not Sunday, so that I could spend Sunday preparing for the

next week and outlining my assignments. This schedule took a lot more time and effort on my

part, but it was necessary for me to develop my PDQP and meet the expectations of the

assignments.

Changes Made Throughout the Project

During the first week of this course, I compiled artifacts that I had acquired throughout

my career and started a rough draft of how I would populate them in each of my domains. At the

beginning, I had six or seven artifacts in some of my domains and I decided that I needed to

narrow it down because I learned that “having too many examples may create an unwieldly task

for you as well as the reviewer” (Costantino, 2009, p. 45). I also thought of some artifacts to add

and move around after I studied the CSTPs more thoroughly. The last change that I made to my

portfolio came after peer feedback in our discussion board. I posted my final draft in the

discussion board on Monday of our final week and a classmate suggested that I add my teaching

philosophy to my portfolio introduction. I thought this had merit, so I added one paragraph about

my teaching philosophy and I feel like it enhanced my introduction, just like my classmate said.

Achievements, Frustrations, and Lessons Learned

As I reflect on my development of my PDQP, my achievements far outweigh my

frustrations. However, there were many frustrations along the way. My primary frustration was

with how time consuming the process was. During the first two weeks of this course, I had

twenty-six parent conferences and two IEP meetings before and after school. Because I had less
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free time than I normally would after school, the time-consuming nature of this project caused

me a lot of stress and frustration as I tried to devote the time necessary to the project. My greatest

achievement is that I was able to complete this project during the most stressful time of the

school year. I excelled in time management and I was consistently filled with pride in myself as I

was able to meet my deadlines each week. The main lesson that I learned is that teachers should

be consistently learning, growing, and reflecting on their practices. Although I know that I am an

exceptional teacher and that I have grown tremendously in the past six years, this course showed

me that I still have a lot of room to grow if I wish to exceed all the standards within the

California Standards for the Teaching Profession.

Implications on Future Teaching Practices and Student Learning

My current goal for improving in my implementation of the CSTPs is in the area of

student engagement. One of the standards in TPE 5: Student engagement is that teachers “ensure

that students understand what they are to do during instruction and monitor student progress

toward academic goals as identified in the academic content standards” (Commission on Teacher

Credentialing, 2013). Although I feel that I meet the minimal expectations of this standard, my

goal is to advance my application of this standard by increasing my understanding and

implementation of Visible Learning strategies in my classroom. I do not want my students to

merely understand what they are supposed to be doing during instruction, but instead I want my

students to clearly understand their learning goals and the success criteria necessary for meeting

their goal. I want my students to have a clear understanding of what they are learning and how

they will know that they have learned it. I also want my students to be able to monitor their own

progress towards meeting their goals. This is difficult to do with third graders, but I think my

students will be able to grow in this area if I am intentional with my unit planning, if I clearly
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state learning goals and success criteria throughout a unit, and if I create a child-friendly tracking

system for my students to use independently. I will continue to attend all Visible Learning

meetings with my school district, collaborate with my Professional Learning Community,

research John Hattie’s Visible Learning strategies, and complete the Impact Cycles within my

Visible Learning Cohort. This is not something that I can easily master in one school year, but a

process that I must continue working towards throughout the remainder of my career.

Advice to Future Students

Now that I have completed the project for this course, I feel that I have valuable advice to

share with future students. First, I would recommend that students work quickly to collect and

organize their artifacts in a digital file to make them easy to access throughout the course. If

students are hunting for artifacts each week, that can take up a lot of valuable time. Students in

this course should be spending most of their artifact time being “highly selective sorting out the

best from the rest, choosing only those items that are critical and essential to the purpose of your

portfolio,” not spending an exorbitant amount of time hunting for potential artifacts that had been

created within the span of their career (Costantino, 2009, p. 45). It worked best for me to focus

on collecting all the artifacts in the first two days of the course and then focus on their placement

each week.

In the first week of this course, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of assignments due

each week and the high expectations that were communicated for each task. The advice I would

give to all students, regardless of where they are in their career, is to: use the monthly time

management calendar that the professor created, read all assignments carefully, frequently

reference the rubric for each assignment, use the weekly checklists that the professor provides,

and participate in every Blackboard Collaborate session. This is a demanding course that requires
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a lot of time and organization, so all students must be prepared to pay close attention to deadlines

and assignment expectations. Future students should also take carefully read the feedback that

they receive from fellow classmates. The professor has created a positive learning community in

this course and the feedback of peers can be very helpful.

Conclusion

Although this was the most challenging course in my master’s program, I feel that it was

by far the most beneficial because it required me to reexamine all the most effective teaching

strategies and analyze my ability to implement those strategies in my classroom. As I reflect on

the process of creating this portfolio, my achievements are in the forefront of my mind and they

stand out more than any of my frustrations. Completing this project has encouraged me to

continue growing in my professional development and set clear goals for myself after achieving

my current goal of earning my master’s degree. I am grateful for the lessons that this course

taught me, and I hope that future students will leave this course with a sense of satisfaction, as

well.
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References

Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2013, March). California Teaching Performance

Expectations [PDF]. Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Costantino, P. M., & De Lorenzo, M. N. (2009). Developing a Professional Teaching Portfolio:

A Guide for Success (Third ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.