Teachers Without Borders/Professional Portfolio and Millennium Development Goals/Reflection and Review

=Course Five: Reflection and Review=

Part 1: Personal Reflection and Group Discussion
1. You have now completed all five courses of the International Certificate of Teaching Mastery. Please take a moment to reflect on the following questions:

a) What have you learned about yourself as a teacher? Please consider the impact of the CTM content, your weekly review/reflections, and your discussions with your colleagues.

b) How has the program enriched your professional knowledge and classroom practice?

c) Do you feel that the program prepared you to be a mentor who can support, guide, and empower his or her colleagues? What are some of the tools, approaches, and strategies you now have at your disposal that will enable you to accomplish this goal?

We encourage you to write down your answers. Then, in small groups (three to five participants) discuss your responses with your colleagues and address the following questions as a group:

a) What are some of the biggest challenges that you are likely to encounter as you present the Certificate program to your colleagues in your community and/or start your work as a CTM mentor? Is there something that TWB can do to assist you as you begin this role? Is there something that our Regional Coordinators can do to help?

b) Is there something that could be added to the CTM to ensure that it more effectively meets the needs of local teachers?

Part 2: Review
1. A teaching portfolio is described in Course Five as "a coherent set of materials including work samples and reflective commentary on them compiled by a faculty member to represent his or her teaching practice as related to student learning and development." What are the benefits of compiling a portfolio? How can it promote and support teacher professional development? How will you support your colleagues in the process of collecting and reflecting on artifacts that represent their professional knowledge and practice?

2. The purpose of a portfolio is to demonstrate examples of teaching excellence. How would you define teaching excellence? Can you think of any examples from your own classroom practice or models that you would like to implement that demonstrate teaching excellence? If so, please share them. How will you ensure that you maintain this level of excellence? Has the CTM been helpful in moving towards this goal? Explain.

3. What are your thoughts on the inclusion of the Millennium Development Goals in the CTM and requiring teachers to either teach about these goals or volunteer in initiatives devoted to the MDGs? How would you explain the value of this approach to the colleagues you will be mentoring?

4. If you were to teach about one of the MDGs in your classroom, which one would you choose and why? What are some of the approaches you explored in the CTM that you would use to engage students in learning about this specific goal? Why would you use these approaches? How would they help you meet your learning objectives?

5. Millennium Development Ambassadors are described as being locally-focused but with a global scope. What, in your opinion, are the advantages of this dual focus for teacher professional growth and for community development? How do you hope to achieve this dual focus in your work?

Copyright 2008, by the Contributing Authors. Cite/attribute Resource. fred. (2008, June 13). Education for the New Millennium. Retrieved May 04, 2010, from TWB Courseware Web site. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png