Teaching Portfolio
Alison MacGillivray

It is essential that educators continue to learn and widen their knowledge base, and creating my e-portfolio has enabled me to reflect on and improve my knowledge by gaining a much richer understanding of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Throughout my degree I have utilised both the descriptors within the standards and the illustrations of practice to guide my learning, while also collaborating with my mentor teachers to plan learning experiences that would provide opportunities for me to put the standards into practice. The University rubrics have also provided me with the opportunity to evaluate my learning and assess where I needed greater focus in my learning needs. These have been an ongoing source of assessment and self-evaluation since my first placement.
[evidence 6.1_1 & 6.1_2]

As a registered member of the Australian Education Union I am able to further my development and professional learning. They regularly run courses and training, one of which I attended to gain my RAN qualifications. Evidence 6.2_1 shows an image of the upcoming events page on their website.

I attended many staff meetings and Professional Development days, with my most recently attended being a staff PD day with guest speaker Neil MacKay. Neil presented a seminar on “Total Teaching: Raising the achievement of vulnerable groups” with the focus being on dyslexia. The event was extremely valuable in improving my knowledge of dyslexia and providing strategies to assist students. Evidence 6.2_2 is a page taken from my notes of the session.

Throughout my pre-service placement I was very proactive in discussing my teaching experiences with my mentor teachers. I have included two pieces of evidence from separate placements. The relationship that was established with all of my mentor teachers has varied considerably depending on their personality and how we related to each other, however with each of my mentors I have maintained a high level of respect for both their teaching experience and their valuable knowledge and incorporated their feedback into my own teaching practices. [evidence 6.3_1 & 6.3_2] 

One of the biggest highlights of my pre-service placements was attending a staff session and additional school visit with author Neil Griffiths. It was a truly wonderful experience and one in which I gained an enormous amount of information from, especially in aspects of literacy. Neil’s enthusiasm and passion for reading was contagious and has certainly impacted the way in which I read to my students, and even my own children. Evidence 6.4_2 is a photo taken of me participating in Neil’s story telling during his school visit.

Having to attend weekly staff meetings allowed me to gain further knowledge and experience with additional teaching and learning opportunities, one of which was to further my knowledge on Bee-Bots. Bee-Bots, a simple robot suitable for the Australian Curriculum learning area Digital Technologies, can be programmed with basic movements of backwards, forwards, 90o left turn and 90o right turn. Students are able to program up to 40 steps on the Bee-Bots creating a sequence or algorithm in which they can solve basic problems. Evidence 6.4_2 shows the students experimenting with the Bee-Bots.