Random Quote
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Teaching Portfolio
I’ve been at my current job for three years now and I haven’t updated my teaching portfolio or resume since I started. Actually the portfolio hadn’t been updated since two years before that. I’ve been updating my resume the last week and I realized that I had a lot of points to add, new skills, new courses taught and created, presentations and now obviously my column on EFL for the Korea Herald.
After updating my resume I decided to give my portfolio a once over. I’m not impressed - it’s time for a complete overhaul. I’m going to pull out some materials that I thought were impressive but now look decidedly second rate. It’s also time to add a few more activities.
I have also spent some time thinking about what should be included in an EFL teaching portfolio. Clearly all the required documents or copies for a VISA, though in Korea I no longer need a work visa. Letters of recommendation, teacher evaluations, and a teaching philosophy. It’s also been a long time since I wrote my teaching philosophy so I’ll be rewriting that as well in order to incorporate new thoughts and ideas that I have learned from books read and conferences attended.
I’ve also decided that I should include one or two sample lesson plans (one for a four skills class and another for a content course). Additionally to complement the lesson plans I intend to include samples of student work - this is easy to get in digital format due to my moodle. I’ve also taken pictures of several projects students have completed in the past.
Finally for the past couple of years I’ve been planning to make a video of myself teaching. This week I start that process. I’ve got a friend coming to my class to run the camcorder. I’ll be recording around three to four classes and then cutting the video down to 6-8 minutes total. I’m planning on getting shots of myself talking to the class, working with small groups, individual work, and in class games that I have created and printed professionally. I’ll also cut to a couple of powerpoint slides directly relevant to what is going on in class. All of this will run with a voice over explaining my teaching style and activities.
I’ll put the video onto DVD as well as have it streaming on my teaching portfolio web site. This site is not yet created, but will have sample materials for download, a teaching philosophy, resume, student samples, and of course my video streaming as well as available for download at high resolution.
for other ideas about portfolios see my post from 2004 as well as this article from Suite 101. Please vote in the poll re: teaching portfolios.
I am looking forward to comments from readers on their thoughts about teaching portfolios. Do you have one? what is in it? What do you think should be included and what should be excluded?
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Mar 29, 2008 at 07:15 PM
Teaching | Polling_Station |
