Clare Hoelscher: Professional Portfolio

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Dear Reader,

I have been drawn to a career in education since I was a young child. I grew up as the oldest sibling of 3 and one of the oldest of my 27 cousins, and I was constantly surrounded by younger children with whom I would interact and look after on a near-daily basis. Early on, I realized that I enjoyed helping them learn how to read and encouraging them to develop new skills.

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Eventually, I was given opportunities to teach other children, such as teaching in my church’s annual Vacation Bible School program, working with children and adults with Special Needs through SIRE Therapeutic Horsemanship, and Practicum Teaching since August 2018. I not only was able to teach others and help them to learn, but I also learned and improved from having the opportunity to teach and interact with each student I encountered.

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As I gain more teaching experience, my love for teaching and helping students to discover new abilities and potential that they did not recognize in themselves beforehand has only become stronger, and I am passionate about giving every student the opportunity and support that they need to improve and to succeed both academically and personally. I hope to never stop teaching and to never stop learning throughout my life, regardless of where exactly my career path leads me.

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Before Clinical Teaching, I had taken two full years of Education courses at the University of Dallas, and I had already completed 60 total hours Practicum Teaching experience in Math, Science, and ELAR. I had already studied various topics related to teaching and education including theories of child growth and development; strategies for teaching elementary Reading, Science, and Math; linguistic theory; children’s and young adult literature; diagnostic and corrective reading; principles of elementary education; and electronic tools and resources that are valuable in teaching. I have also taken two semesters of Reflective Teaching, a student-driven educational research course in which the chosen research and discussion topic was “Factors that Affect Student Achievement” and “Education in Twenty-First Century America”.

Going into my Clinical Teaching semester, I did not have any particular questions about teaching, but I did want to learn more about how to be an effective teacher and how to manage a classroom well. Through my experience teaching in the classroom and discussions with my cooperating teacher and colleagues, as well as discussions, article analyses, lesson observations, and the Oral Examination through my Clinical Teaching Seminar class, I have had the opportunity to think critically about what I encounter as I continue to study Education and to further develop my own personal philosophy of education.

Through all of my time in the classroom as a Student Teacher, I learned so much about education as an applied field and about how a successful classroom functions. In my previous practicum teaching experiences, I have observed and taught kindergarten Math and Science, fourth grade Reading, and fifth grade Science. I also had the opportunity to perform two Diagnostic Reading case studies, one with a kindergartner and one with a fifth-grader, in which I administered pre-assessments, created an individualized instructional plan for each student, tutored the students, and administered a post-assessment. I then used all of this information to analyze the students’ growth in the target areas outlined in the instructional plan and to make recommendations for areas in which the students needed further support and instruction. During this semester of Clinical Teaching, I have been able to further apply what I have learned in my university courses and previous teaching experience, as well as learning new skills and having the opportunity to full-day teach for several weeks.

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These skills have only been developed and strengthened in my experience as a professional teacher in Kindergarten since 2020. I have learned flexibility through the challenges of the 2020-2021 school year and the new challenges that have arisen each year since then.

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Through all of these experiences, I have become better at working one-on-one with students, determining what vocabulary level at which the instruction for each group of students should be, instructing students in a variety of content knowledge from a variety of subject areas, and managing a small group of students as well as an entire classroom. I have learned cooperative teaching strategies through working and collaborating with other teachers and paraprofessionals in the classroom, and I have learned so much about time management and the need to be flexible regarding schedule changes and unforeseen road bumps that sometimes arise during lessons. Overall, I have grown as both a teacher and as a person, and these experiences in which I have interacted directly with students and seen them grow as well has reaffirmed my love for teaching and the positive impact that passionate, caring, and effective teachers can have on young people.

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This Professional Portfolio is a partial amalgamation of what I have learned so far and what I hope to learn in the future. I invite you to follow along with my journey as an educator, and I encourage you to further your own understanding of teaching and of education as a whole.

Sincerely,

Clare Hoelscher