I'll admit that I wasn't excited to be taking a practicum course for the third time in three years. But I can say that I found this course to be really interesting and suprisingly useful nonetheless. Because I have a good of experience preparing assignment sheets, grading, and dealing with classroom management issues, I had the time to really listen to what my peers were trying in their classrooms and develop some really awesome lesson plans. I'll admit that I'm a solid extemporaneous speaker, so I've never been one to prepare lecture detailed lecture notes. One of my personal goals this semester was to begin to develop at least 3-4 in-class activities where students could do some self-guided learning. There are some pros and some serious cons to flipped model classrooms, but I'd really like to get better at developing student-centered learning modules. I'm not sure I was wholly successful in that aspect. However, listening to my peers discuss things they were trying in their own classrooms and lesson plans they would like to try truly gave me a lot of inspiration. Also, I had the opportunity to observe students who had been at UA longer than I discuss university culture and administrative expectations, which also had a positive affect on my assimilation into the program.

Within this portfolio, I've included my assignment sheets for the semester, my reflective essays from each unit, and my final reflection on this course. All of these materials will provide good information on my progress and performance through my first semester teaching at UA. The close of this semester marks the end of my fifth semester teaching. I hope it doesn't sound too cliche to acknowledge that it feels like I've been doing this forever and that I just got started. I've got a nice little collection of assignments and lesson plans to show for it.

In an effort to make this portfolio more accessbile, the website is has few images and none that serve as navigation or add content. The site is styled so that screen readers should have no trouble navigating the menus. All links have alt or title text. The color scheme has been checked for all four types of color blindness. All assignment documents are embedded as PDFs in a viewer on the page, but they are also available for download as PDFs and DOCX. While I'm certain there are areas where this site could be more accessible, I'm satisfied with the efforts I've made so far. I'll continue to work on accessibility as this portfolio develops.