Are teacher portfolios still even a thing?
Teacher portfolios.  Everyone’s got one right?  They’re needed for job applications, accreditation, teacher registration and digital footprint management.  

With the dawn of the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment, the many different systems that educators have to use in different states and territories AND the pressure of it all (gah!  ) you’d be forgiven for thinking that a teacher portfolio is all about compliance and so… if your uni doesn’t ask for one.. they’re not a thing…

At least that’s what I overheard in a Facebook Group recently….

 
Let's unpack what a teacher portfolio is for...
Portfolios are most definitely a thing.  Thousands of people are using Edufolios right now to create one and fill it with their evidence of practice.

In this episode, I want to pull apart our beliefs about portfolios and their roles in our professional lives.

If you’re a principal, then I’d be really keen to hear your thoughts on some of these ideas and beliefs. Make sure you message us!

Tune in to hear:

• Why your own experience might be different to someone in another state, uni, sector, school or leadership team.  Yep.. Culture and process time!
• How the pages you’re being asked to create for an interview should be in a portfolio! and WHY!
• Why we ask our kids to create portfolios of their learning in one way… and ignore all that knowledge when we create one about our teaching
• Why having it online doesn’t mean you can’t supply evidence on paper.
• The new, upgraded export tool in Edufolios
• Why your principal would be impressed that you have a portfolio.

We all know that teacher accreditation has a compliance arm. We all have very strong feelings about the box-ticking element of career progression.  What if we looked at career progression through a slightly less armoured lens?

Let's look at it in the context of a shared purpose.  A purpose of increasing the positive impact we're having in our classrooms and schools every day. 

If we can keep that conversation as our focus and use the language of the career stages and standards as our model for healthy striving and celebration.. what happens to the culture of our site? What happen to the results we get for our students?

Join me as we explore this and I share examples of good practice I've seen at some of the leaders in schools we work with. 

Is it possible that you are a lead teacher?  Seriously... What does it mean to be "Lead" and how is that different to being in a leadership role at a site? In this episode, we explore what leadership is.  Why it's not about you single-handedly taking on a project and why it will be a story that involves your colleagues and the impact you have helped them to achieve.  With a little help from Brene Brown's "Dare to Lead", we will break apart any assumptions about the word "lead" and see how you feel about it!

Let us know what this brings up for you @edufolios on Twitter, FB or Insta 

What is it like to go through the lead teacher process?  Should you do HA first?  

In this episode, we are joined by Angela Phillips from Westminster School in South Australia.  She shares her journey to Lead with us in this case study.  As a recent recipient of lead status her incites are Invaluable.

If you've been feeling some doubt about whether to go for HA or LEad (or anything at all!). If you're in charge of a program to help others become accredited (or a part of one) and if you'd like to hear what a difference it makes when you focus on Impact and NOT the standards.. then this episode is for you :)

Sadly, artefacts, by themselves do not qualify as evidence.

so, If you collect examples of impact (Artefacts) you won't have a heap of evidence 

No matter what career stage you're working at, in order for someone to assess what that artefact shows they're are going to need some context and some explanation.  That's why, in this episode, we talk about the context for your artefact and what you need to do with it to make it an important piece of a successful evidence set or story of practice.

Tune in to learn why you may need to PEE all over your evidence.  (Point, Evidence, Explanation) and where the artefact fits into all that!  Let's get your artefacts a comfy spot to sit in your evidence where you feel confident you've got the right one, with the right context (point) and a powerful explanation that uses the standards LIKE A BOSS. 

I can't submit this evidence! It's too long and I'm not sure it's highly accomplished ​😱

If you've sat down and written an evidence post for your stage one application for highly accomplished... (or, for that matter, at any career stage), you're moving in the right direction.

You know there's a word count for each highly accomplished (HAT) evidence set.  (It's about 500-600 words for the context statement and 200-250 words for each annotation ... check with your assessors for your jurisdictions exact numbers).

You just sat down and let the story of your teaching practice flow.  You even enjoyed it as you talked about your kids, the work you've been doing with colleagues (because... that's highly accomplished!) and the impact you've been having.

The trouble is...  what you've written is well over the word count.  You're not even sure it's HA.  Even though you enjoyed writing this, you've now got that horrible sinking feeling in your stomach as you realize you might not have done this right. 🤢

Let's wind this back a moment.  In your day to day work...

you know... teaching...

If you set your students to work and they got everything right the first time they did it.... you'd need to up your challenge right? 

Give yourself some Grace! Your HA evidence was never going to be perfect straight off the bat

In the last episode, we talked a lot about that sinking feeling.  We also talked a lot about giving yourself space to learn. To get it wrong and then move forward. 

I can not tell you the number of times I've heard... just get started... as the first piece of advice coming from our most successful subscribers.

Congratulations... You got started! 🥂

Now.. let's get this evidence you've written focused and powerful.  Let's turn that sinking feeling into celebration, confidence and pride!

Tune in to this week's episode to continue our conversation on making sure your evidence is focused and clear. 

We've got four more tips for you this week that will help turn your novella into several, shorter, more focused POWERFUL 💪 evidence sets for your Stage 1 application at HA or LEAD.

It's so hard to know I'm focusing on the right things in my stories of practice!
As you begin to tackle the process of writing and creating  evidence sets, a million questions enter your mind.  You start by writing a story about what happened in your classroom today.

You’re actually enjoying the process as things pop into your mind. Questions about why that worked so well and what you could do differently next time for that one student who just wouldn’t stay focused.  Then you remember that this is an evidence set or a story of practice and you start to feel like, ENJOYING this is the wrong thing.  

Doubts start to creep in.  It shouldn’t be this easy…it shouldn’t feel this much fun.  If I start here, how will I even know that I AM hitting ANY focus areas?  Your heart races, you feel that familiar drop in your stomach as it lurches with nerves and the frustration that you might have just wasted 30 mins of your day causes no small amount of anger.  You STOP and feel defeated… again.

This is an all to familiar story and in this two part-er, we’re going to unpack that and share some sneaky secrets that will help keep you in that confident and curious place and away from that pit of doom that you keep falling into…

The key is..
Impact, Character, Permission to be Messy....
There are three pieces of advice in Part One. Our focus today is on the purpose of the story you are writing and the hero of that story (and how it is definitely NOT you OR the standards).  We’re also going to look at where this desire to hit all the standards… in fact to KNOW exactly which standard you are hitting… as you write.. is coming from!

Would you expect your students to hand up just one version of their coursework or would you let them explore the ideas and themes in their books.. mark that and give them feedback… then let them do a draft… which you mark and give feedback on and then… once they are more comfortable go for the gold?  I thought so.

Let’s talk about being kinder to ourselves.  I share some processes and a two post-it system (I’m not kidding!) to keep that horrible fear and overwhelm monster away! 

Jocelyn Brewer, Cyber Pshychologist and Teacher talks with Selena about ICT in our classrooms, how we need to stay curious, brave with it and what that means for us as teachers.

ICT shows up in standards 2.6 and 4.5 right?
There are only two focus areas in the Australian Professional Standards that ask you to write about ICT and computer use in your classroom. 2.6 asks you to talk about ICT as a resource that enhancing learning and teaching and 4.5 is all about the social and ethical protocols and practices when you’re using ICT. Have you found yourself scratching your head when it comes to meeting this two in an evidence piece?

If you’re thinking, do I just talk about the software I used with year 9 last week? What are the social and ethical protocols I need to cover? Have you found yourself with a bit of a knot in your stomach over this one? Not really sure how you’re going to evidence it? Particularly at HAT or LEAD teacher level? Well… what if I told you

When you use ICT you SHOULD hit a lot more than 2.6 and 4.5
This week, I’m talking to Jocelyn Brewer. As part of Sydney University’s Cyberpsychology research group, she has been examining the intersection of psychology and technology for over a decade. A former educator, a parent and a very passionate advocate for giving our students what they need to stay safe, connected and happy in online spaces, she shares some amazing insights and research into how ICT meets a whole lot more than 2.6 and 4.5. 

As you listen, you’re going to start to see opportunities to think and talk about ICT in new ways in your evidence portfolio. 

Things I love about this interview:

We talk, quite candidly, about the mess we’re in with ICT. How complicated it is… who is responsible for all this and why and how that impacts YOU.
She shares so many resources for you to explore that I had to break the further reading section into two columns! (go check that out!)
We talk about this through the lens of the teacher, but also through the lens of the parent. Lead applicants… this might spark a project that would impact your entire site as you explore “the mountain” of ICT use at your site.
As two researchers who love to talk Edtech WITH a research lens. You can expect us to cut through the BS of fear-mongering and tell you what the research actually shows… (and where its gaps are).

This episode was just so much fun! 

Don’t forget to do the challenge at the end! Comment your reflections, or tweet / Instagram your posts. Tag us @edufolios as you do and we’ll have a look! #rtpodcast

The Evidence Creation Process is Overwhelming, Hard Work and UNFAIR!
We all know that evidence and portfolios are now a fact of life for all Aussie Educators.  Right!?

We also know that putting together your portfolio of evidence can be hard. It’s time-consuming and it can feel overwhelming.

If it were easy to put your evidence together, you have done it already, wouldn’t you? Because you want (and deserve) to progress your career journey!

I get it! Every time you try and set aside time to get this done in the “next school Holidays”, “ mid-semester break” or when you’ve got X, Y and Z all lined up something inexplicable happens and it just DOESN’T GET DONE

Every time those goals slip by, un-met, it can be really easy to beat yourself up, can’t it?

It's not your fault! You were NEVER TAUGHT THIS
That’s where The Evidence Engine™ comes in 

You’ve heard me talk about this a lot on the podcast and NOW is THE TIME to get yourself a ticket and join the other educators who are about to learn the secrets to creating evidence in under 30 days.

I’ve been sharing tips and tricks with you for 94 episodes now 20,000 of you have downloaded those episodes and used them to help support you on your Evidence Creation journey.

Now is your chance to work with me.

Side by side

Step by step through the evidence creation process

But..

The doors to the Evidence Engine™ close at 8pm tonight (the 13th April)

Tune in to hear more about the Evidence Engine and how it might help you I can’t wait to work with you very soon!!

See you onboard! Edufolios.org/yes

FREE WEBINAR: Edufolios.org/freepd

Mentoring, it's all about helping another, less experienced educator, grow. Probably because you've been doing it longer, have more experience or just more confidence and they can learn from you.

That can be scary, can't it? One thing teachers find tricky is to celebrate their own success and stand in the power of the impact they're having. (It's one of the reasons that accreditation can be so confronting). It's also kind of nice to feel "looked up" to, isn't it?

But... what if we've got it wrong?
What if mentoring is actually about learning MORE than it is about you passing any knowledge on? What if you used mentoring as a process through which, you could grow and develop too?

Moving away from the pressure of the fountain of all knowledge and towards someone who is willing to learn from someone who has far less experience than you... but a different perspective.
Mentoring can be as much about your OWN growth and development as your mentees.

In this episode, we explore how portfolios and the standards can help you do that as I share four ways YOU can stake your claim as the chief learner in your classroom.