Organize Artifacts

Have you and your students discovered the benefits of storing and organizing work in Chalk and Wire’s Artifact Library?

In the three weeks leading up to the interviews for candidates applying to student teach, I often hear students lament that they can not find the papers they would like to use in their portfolio. Several circumstances may contribute to this state of near-hysteria. Perhaps the assignment was never returned to them by their instructor. Perhaps they lost their flash drive with all of their work. Perhaps they never developed a digital or paper filing system that would make it easier to find completed assignments. Perhaps they titled all of their instructional plans “Instructional Plan” with no indication of date or draft number. And pity the student who moved during their time in the program – they may not be able to find anything.

Prudent use of Chalk and Wire’s Artifact Library is the answer to the candidates’ dilemma. The Artifact Library allows one to add folders in which one may securely store artifacts. Faculty should encourage candidates to create folders and name them according to a helpful organizational scheme. For example, candidates might choose to create a folder for each course in their program. Any assignment created for a course could be stored in that course’s folder. In addition, if files are given descriptive names, it will be even easier to locate a particular product or trace the development of a type of product. For example, a file name such as Rousculp_Ed 315_UP_Salmon_F08 would help the student realize this is their unit plan about salmon prepared during Ed 315 in the fall semester of 2008.

Another organizational scheme that might be helpful would be to organize folders by student-teacher-interview required artifacts. For example, since the candidate knows from their first education course that they will be required to provide unit plans and instructional plans in their interview portfolio, they could create folders for each of these types of artifact required. The list might include educational philosophy, unit plans, instructional plans, classroom management plans, parent involvement plans, plans for demonstrating positive impact on student learning, and evaluations of teaching performance. With descriptive file names as explained above, the candidate would have a much easier time locating and selecting pieces for their student teaching interview portfolio.

The time and stress saved through advance organization could be better used in reflection on one’s development.