Combs 2016 |

Teaching Portfolio Rationales

Part I: Describe a teaching artifact that represents the overall HTSB Standard
HTSB Overall Standard
Standard #9: Professional

Learning and Ethical Practice

The teacher engages in ongoing professional
learning and uses evidence to continually
evaluate his/her practice, particularly the
effects of his/her choices and actions on others
(learners, families, other professionals, and the
community), and adapts practice to meet the
needs of each learner.
Teaching Artifact
Classroom Rules

Course
Teaching Artifact Description

295A

At the start of each term, I go over classroom

rules with students to ensure they treat each
other with respect and remain safe.
Teaching Artifact Results
Students know what to expect and how they should behave.
Part II: Connect the teaching artifact to sub-standard and assess your proficiency
Sub Standard
Candidate Protects the Health, Safety, WellBeing, and Rights of Students - Does Candidate
take all reasonable precautions to protect the health,
safety, well-being, and legislative rights of students?
(9.4)

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Connection to Artifact

Students need to know where their boundaries are. They need to

know what the expectations are and what the consequences are for
behavior.

Self-Assessment
4-Candidate ALWAYS does this as a teacher.
3-Candidate MOSTLY does this as a teacher
2-Candidate SOMETIMES does this as a teacher
1-Candidate RARELY/NEVER does this as a teacher
NA-Candidate did not have the opportunity to do this
Evidence of Self-Assessment

When I first came into the class, I worked with students to come
up with a set of classroom rules that we all could agree on. This is
particularly important in the Science class. Students know if they
are goofing off, they could physically harm themselves or others.
We have agreed that if people are not on task, that we will not do
labs. They really like the lab days, so they work hard to control
themselves. Sometimes when students are out of line, other
students will actually take them to task. I think having them help
each other is great. It creates an environment of control and
responsibility.
Part III: Improve your proficiency for the HTSB Standard
Sub Standard to Improve
Candidate Protects the Health, Safety, WellBeing, and Rights of Students - Does Candidate
take all reasonable precautions to protect the health,
safety, well-being, and legislative rights of students?
(9.4)
What to Improve?
Research at least 2 resources
on how to improve
proficiency.

I will continue to work toward helping students learn how to

police themselves with respect to their behavior and treatment of
others.
Creating an environment with specific boundaries helps students
know where they stand. There are a whole host of benefits to
intentionally promoting clear and shared classroom rules and
expectations. A survey of the research demonstrates some of the
obvious benefits, such as:

Students know what to expect and they understand the

Combs 2016 |

learning tasks better (Wentzel, 2006).

Things in the class run more smoothly with less

confusion (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994).

Students have a clearer sense of what it takes to

perform (Hines, Cruickshank & Kennedy, 1985).
Some other benefits of having clear classroom rules and
expectations that are less obvious, are:

Expectations that are clear and shared are essential to help

foster the cause-and-effect relationship between actions and
consequences. Without clarity and a shared understanding,
consequences feel arbitrary. The result is that they will have
less benefit and be experienced as more punitive and result in
more resentment and less behavior change.

The absence of clear expectations will create practical

problems and an environment of uneasiness in the class that
will lead to confusion, frustration and hostility when
expectations clash.

An intentional approach to promoting expectations helps

them become more concrete and meaningful. When
expectations exist as words (or privately held assumptions),
they remain abstractions. They must be operationalized to be
effective.

Expectations help the class interpret events and actions as

examples or non-examples of things that are making us
better.

Implementation of Findings

http://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/benefits-ofdeveloping-clear-classroom-rules-and-expectations/
I also spoke to Dr. Combs about the culture here in Hawaii. She
advised that students do better with boundaries.
Dr. Sandra CombsKapaa High School
I am going to work more on being consistent with the rules. I
sometimes become a little too lax.