Bless This Mess!

The Journey of Nancy Coquard and her Professional Portfolio...

Sunday, October 26, 2003.
Today I decided to put my professional portfolio in order...well an order that is recognizable not only to me

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I started by cleaning out all kinds of 'stuff' from my office... a BIG pile was formed. From the random chaos an order emerged supported by my benchmark pages  -  Philosophy, Goals, Artifacts....Reflections.

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Click on the images to download PDF versions of the files.

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Discussions at the portfolio meeting on Friday helped to determine what to keep, what to throw away and what to archive.

I see my portfolio as layers of my professional life  -  no one layer stands alone and no layer can be removed without impacting the integrity of my portfolio.... So ...

I made little piles....

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From the notes and my reflections and much reading over the years I have developed my philosophy  -  or belief statement. My personal life is all about risk taking. "GO FOR IT!!" should be my motto! And emblazoned on a T-shirt!

My Belief statement is done. Not to be shared tho'...

Multi-tasking is a teachers forte  -  so goal setting is a challenge!
But I followed the pattern we used in the Halton Board in Ontario with one personal goal, one professional goal and one pedagogical goal.
The personal goal is for me as a person  -  we can never separate who we are as persons from teaching.. the lines are too blurred.
The professional goal is what I intend to do as a professional  -  to improve my practice  -  the pedagogical goal is what I intend to improve for my students. It is the focus of students that determines this goal.

My personal goal is just that  -  personal. But one of my professional goals  -  and there are two  -  is to increase the amount of professional reading I do and to document and organize my learnings from these. My pedagogical goal is to complete a set of ICT Learning Outcomes for teachers to use with students. It has 3 volets.

Goal statement done!

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The artifacts are difficult ... that's the mess! From a folder and a pile of stuff I must come to place where the archives don't smother the new work. The working portfolio has years worth of valuable debris .. but for this year  -  the layer has yet to be determined.

Cataloguing the collection of a teacher's work is daunting! So my next step is to create 'the list'. And from there to create the layers.
And the piles....

Right now I am concerned with creating the base layer  -  the foundation for my portfolio  -  it has everything! As I need to I will select layers for showcase portfolios depending on what purpose I intend for them.

And so 'the list' becomes an important tool. Once I have a list of artifacts I can organize them into categories and then select the ones that I intend to keep in my portfolio and the ones that are to be archived and the ones that still need work. Not everything is on paper. I have a great deal that is exclusively electronic. The blackout last month gave me cause for concern....

Is this where I make a list also of articles and professional readings? And what about certificates and diplomas etc?
And personal artifacts...?
And then there's reflection. I have some journal stuff and other personal notes....

But I do have 2 critical friends ...

So I am here .. Beliefs and goals done .. artifacts in piles and a final format to be determined. I want to have it on CD as much as possible. I have an idea for my title page.

Stay tuned!

nancy

Click here for the sequel to "Bless This Mess" -

Part II: The Portfolio Chaos Theory: Random is an Order

Part II: The Portfolio Chaos Theory: Random is an Order sequel to "Bless This Mess"

Nancy Coquard , M.Ed. RECIT ETSB

Why the Chaos Theory? Because it embodies the idea that it is possible to get completely random results from normal input. Chaos theory also applies to the reverse: "finding the order in what appears to be completely random data." 1

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"A chaotic system can actually evolve in a way that appears to be smooth and ordered, however. Chaos refers to the issue of whether or not it is possible to make accurate long-term predictions of any system if the initial conditions are known to an accurate degree."2

I think these about describe where my thinking is with respect to my portfolio. I have set goals but they are not written in stone. I may find that one of the goals will take on a life of its own and lead me in other directions but still be within the paradigm of my portfolio. I just don't know what the end portfolio will look like  -  maybe this is one time when Covey's "Begin with the end in mind" doesn't fully apply.

My special colleague and friend wrote:

Hi Nancy,
Yes, it's incredibly useful - for me anyway, for one, because I am
comfortable with piles of stuff..... I especially like the notion of layers,
as you had mentioned on Friday. It really makes sense that you have the
foundation and depending on the purpose and audience, certain things
float to the top. I also like that there is the mess but also ways of
organizing it, which I always find difficult - the Philosophy, Goals,
Artifacts, Reflections, and the belief, intention, selection and
reflection forms.

I have been preaching Teacher Professional Portfolios for years and have always sort of neglected my own. Like all untended paper piles they 'grow' and have a life of their own  -  an entity.

A portfolio is one of those things that can get so big you don't know where to start...

My special colleague friend asked some really good questions:
She wrote:

"The 3 types of goals the personal, professional and
pedagogical, are also helpful frameworks, although this is where I'm not
entirely sure - are these directly related to the way that you organize
or make selections for the portfolio? Is it to make you focus on certain
aspects of your work, to keep you on track, or for you to collect real
evidence that you are following your plan?"

The goals are things that I want to accomplish and track. Once chosen they then colour the collection and selection of artifacts. The strategies that I use to complete or work towards the goals will be reflected in the artifacts. I chose this year as a professional goal to do more reading in order to supplement and support my portfolio learnings. I will do lots of other reading ... and hopefully more writing. In my portfolio I will then keep a log of these readings and reflect on them. The log and maybe copies of some articles will become artifacts.

Up to now I have been very eclectic - portfolio soup would be a good
description. The goals force me to put a focus on some things  -  to put those things in the top layer and to relegate others to another layer.

For the pedagogical one it will be tracking the creation of these ICT Learning Outcomes... organizing the research .. working through the draft and the final copy ... and lastly the process of editing and teacher critical reviews. Part of the process and included in the collection will be how I go about ensuring that these are shared.

One thing I have learned over the years .. well two things. First - I will never
be taller than 5'2".. (sigh) and second - there will never be more than 24 hours in a day (usually!). Saying "I don't have time!" is a 'cop-out'. We make choices. I now make sure I say - "I didn't choose to use my time to do that" or "I didn't plan well enough to make time for that". What you are in effect saying is this or that is not a priority... and once I realized that spending time was a decision of priorities it made getting some things done easier. How I spend my time is ultimately my decision.

For my PP this year I will select things that show professional growth and a
willingness to take risks, things that show management skills, and things that
demonstrate my expertise in curriculum design with ICT.

So for Goal setting I am still wrestling with how many! My personal goals are already two: one is to prepare this TPP for any eventuality and the other is..personal. And also not making them too vague .. maybe I need to clarify that professional reading should be targeted reading in e-portfolios and in learning with laptops.

Each goal will also need strategies  -  the 'how' part of going about realizing this goal. And a timeline. I know that there needs to be concrete benchmarks and it's all about putting the big rocks in first! That's hard for me! So I will need to create that and check it off as it gets done. I also need to put a list together of my artifacts so I can prepare an organization for my portfolio. Right now Chaos is the operative word  -  Random best describes the order.

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As I look forward to retirement my portfolio will need to be modified depending on the project in which I want to become involved. I will select some personal
items; I have a brag section with my degrees and diplomas - a section about people I admire, and a personal history. These are all part of my portfolio - who I am - it's not hyphenated at this point...

Will I need a pedagogical goal? Or can it all be just personal? Perhaps the portfolio for international projects will be just a showcase.

The group meeting for Portfolios on Friday helped me a lot. I was able through the discussions to clarify some of my thinking. The notion of layers gave me permission to keep lots of things in my working portfolio and not to arbitrarily cut pieces for showcase .. or to archive others.

I guess portfolio soup or portfolio salad works as a format for right now...
It's all about choices... and priorities ... and decisions. And as I make decisions the order will follow. The Chaos Theory: Random is an Order. This about sums up where I am right now.


"The applications of chaos theory are infinite; seemingly random systems produce patterns of spooky understandable irregularity. chaos appears to be everywhere. .... Understanding chaos is understanding life as we know it. "
Welcome to Manus J. Donahue's Educational Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry Project
Retrieved on December 2, 2003 from http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/chaosh.html.
Also referenced
1. http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html
2. http://www.mathjmendl.org/chaos/#theory

Our Burning Questions

Portfolio Collaborations : It's a DIGITAL world 2003-2004

Project Leader: Nancy Coquard

Teacher-researchers : Louise Allen, Alexander Galt High School; John Palov,
Heroes Elementary School; Martine Bourbeau, Waterloo Elementary School; Darlene Badger,
Waterloo Elementary School; Dale MacKenzie, Walterloo Elementary School

Consultants: Carol'Ann McKelvey, Consultant for Evaluation and Assessment; Betty Kreuger,
English Language Arts Consultant Goal setting:
http://www.etsb.qc.ca/en/teacher_resources/ICT_RECIT/r_d/goal_setting.htm Artifact collection:
http://www.etsb.qc.ca/en/teacher_resources/ICT_RECIT/r_d/collection.htm Rubrics and Evaluation:
http://www.etsb.qc.ca/en/teacher_resources/ICT_RECIT/r_d/Portfoliorubric.htm