My Teaching Portfolio presents and analyzes new ideas that I added to the course in order to increase the students’ study and understanding of methods and materials for teaching infants and toddlers. For a comparison of the course syllabi from different semesters, please see other sections of this site. The revised procedures were designed to make the students’ progress more explicit for their own evaluation as well as mine as their instructor. The data I analyzed included student attendance and grades, student course evaluations, and excerpts from their reflective writing.
Producing a Teaching Portfolio gave me a framework in which to refine the course. Although the methods I used seemed at first too scientific for a subjective area like teaching, the “Hypothesis, Data, Conclusion” structure allowed me to be more objective about my teaching. It is all too easy to get caught up in the personalities of students or blind arrogance about the quality of my work in the classroom. The more scientific structure allowed me to consider my preconceived notions about what I hoped would happen, look at student work as raw data and analyze the situation to come to an informed conclusion. The rigor of this structure kept me on track and provided a system for documenting student work and reflective comments.