SCET Journal 2020

Reflecting on

Teaching

At this time, Promethean/SMART Boards were be- coming in vogue, shared G-drives existed, and online tools were in their toddlerhood. Video, audio, and image files had gone digital, and software could be download- ed for revision and editing purposes. Now, instead of a several hundred-page printed document, my in- structions took the form of a sleek CD-ROM. While my video component had modernized to allow me to burn to a CD, my written submissions were required to be paper-based (see Figure 2). Web 2.0 features were still

evolving, and something as significant as NBC submis- sions could not be trusted to still untried and less than secure platforms. This time, the entries’ requirements were tricky for me to comply with. They no longer focused on my analysis of student work and my accompanying instruction but instead on “a single group of Profes- sional Growth Experiences” (PGEs) ( https://www. nbpts.org/national-board-certification/renewal/ , 3rd paragraph) that connected to each other as well as

the Five Core Propositions and the ELA Standards in a double helix way (see Figure 2). Additionally, my video component directed me to conduct a class within my original certification area. In my case – English/Language Arts, Adolescence/Young Adulthood (ELA/AYA) -- this meant a class with students aged 14 and above. By this time, I had moved out of the classroom into a middle school staff development position in a different Maryland dis- trict. To meet the requirement, I had to “borrow” an eighth-grade class and ensure the majority of the students were 14 at the time of recording. Since many students did not turn 14 until well into or after the school year ended, this proved to be a considerable challenge. The age issue required me to survey students to determine when a majority of them met the criteria, which turned out to be very late leaving me little time to record, edit, analyze, and write my portfolio entry before the deadline. Of course, my NBC cycles seem to coincide with significant person- al events. When undergoing my first renewal, I was also packing my fam- ily’s belongings for a cross-country move and attempting to sell our house in a quickly down-turning market. Once again, I found myself juggling the demands of two elementary-aged children, a household, a career, and personal life changes in addition to completing the PPG requirements to maintain my NB Certification. Again,

Figure 2: Architecture of Accomplished Teaching (https://kentuckynbpl.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/0/0/120036800/aat_new.png)

2018/2019

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