Teacher Work Sample Portfolio

Purpose and Brief Description

The Teacher Work Sample Portfolio is documentation of teaching a unit to a group of students, loosely based on the Teacher Work Sample Methodology from Western Oregon University . The TWS Portfolio is intended to show the impact of the university student (teacher candidate) on the learning of students taught by indicating the level of knowledge or skills the students possess before the unit and the level of knowledge or skills after the unit has been taught.

The unit must be sequenced set of at least five (5) daily lessons addressing one or more goals from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study appropriate for the grade level and subject where the teacher candidate is assigned. The teacher candidate should prepare a unit of learning, teach the unit including pre- and post testing students, and reflect on the unit.

The TWS Portfolio should be completed during the student teaching semester (or the second semester of the internship). The complete portfolio must be submitted to the university supervisor no late than four weeks before the last exam day of the semester. The university supervisor will share an evaluation of the portfolio and provide a written copy of the evaluation to the teacher candidate.

TWS Portfolio Components

The TWS Portfolio required components are (1) description of the context, (2) goals, (3) rationale, (4) lesson plans, (5) pre- and posttests, (6) assessment analysis, (7) reflective essay, and (8) unique learner activity. Each component is described below.

Further details about the Teacher Work Sample Portfolio are available at Dr. Mary Jean Herzog's web site: http://paws.wcu.edu/mherzog/twsu.pdf