Over the course of the school year, I have changed as both a teacher and a person. My personal and professional growth are both evident across the three platforms that I have written in this portfolio.

The most apparent change that I have undergone is how I view myself as a teacher. In my first platform, I viewed teaching as I had experienced it: from the perspective of a student. I connected my views to my elementary school experience, and modeled an “effective teacher” after a teacher that I really liked in fifth grade. In my second platform, I viewed teaching in the way that I observed it when I watched my mentor teacher plan and implement lessons. I saw her as the “effective teacher” and used her ideas and classroom procedures as examples of good teaching. In my final platform, I viewed teaching from my own perspective because I finally viewed myself as the teacher. I used my own personal experiences in the classroom to make claims about teaching and provided evidence that was relevant to my experience.

The four claims that I derived in my final platform evolved from my first two platforms. I knew in my first two platforms that it was important for a teacher to meet individual student needs, but I did not explain how to do so. In my final platform, I was able to provide two pieces of evidence that show how I have worked to adapt student needs into my lessons. As for community building, I did not really know much about that aspect of schooling at the beginning of PDS. I began to get a sense for it as I observed my mentor's techniques, and then developed my own ideas about community building by the final platform. I even completed a teacher inquiry to improve the community in my classroom because I feel that it is one of the most important aspects of elementary school. My third claim in my final platform discusses how teachers can impact student learning through the use of technology. I did not mention technology in my first two platforms because I did not see its impact on the students until I began my full-time student teaching in April. My final claim deals with parent/teacher communication, which is something else that I have derived from my PDS experience. In my first and second platforms, I do not mention parents and teachers working together because I did not have much contact with the parents in my classroom at that point. As I moved into the teacher role, however, I recognized the effectiveness of open communication with parents.

Throughout the year, I have clearly gained more confidence in myself, and have learned a lot of tools and strategies to take along with me into the classroom. I have found my own teacher persona, and have proved to be capable and confident in all that I do. In the first platform, my view of an effective teacher was one who created "fun" and "memorable" lessons. I now realize that there is much more to teaching than that. Not only has my view of myself as a teacher changed, my view of teachers in general has changed this year. These three platforms show a distinct progression of my knowledge and experience with teaching, and are evidence of my growth during my PDS experience.