Running head: TELLING MY STORY 1

Telling My Story Through My PDQP

Julie Lansing

National University

April 14, 2019

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Abstract

This paper will be an example of what components will be in my Professional Development

Quest Portfolio or PDQP for my Capstone at National University. My website will be made up

of an Introduction page, Table of Contents page, a page for each of the six different Domains A-

F, and an About Me Page. These domains will represent the thirteen different California

Teaching Performance Expectations or TPEs. This paper will be used in reference to TPE 1 in

Domain A and how my artifacts will be covering Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to

Students, specifically Subject-Specific Pedagogical Skills for Multiple Subject Teaching

Assignments.
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Telling My Story Through My PDQP

My journey to becoming an educator has been many years in the making. I graduated in

2004 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology. From there I continued as a swim

instructor for the rest of the summer. I had always had a passion for helping others learn and I

used that passion to help find ways to teach each swimmer how to swim. I knew then that not

everyone was going to be able to pick up swimming the same way as the next swimmer. This

goes along with making subject matter comprehensible to students (Domain A), as coaching is

very similar to teaching. Through coaching, I realized that I wanted to be more involved in

teaching and helping others learn, so I became a substitute teacher to continue my love of

educating others.

After I had been a substitute for about a year, I knew that I wanted to become a teacher. I

also wanted to take care of my daughter and then my son, so I decided to continue being a

substitute until my own children were in school full time. I went back to school in November of

2016 to continue my journey as a future educator. I completed my credentialing degree in May

of 2018, and I was hired to teach 4th grade in Hemet, CA for the 2018-2019 school year. Now I

am on my last class to complete my master’s in Education.

Which leads to the Professional Development Quest Portfolio (PDQP), which includes

artifacts for each of the six domains from the California Teaching Performance Expectations

(TPEs). I will be exploring each of the six domains and giving specific evidence and artifacts for

each TPE and sharing from my own experiences in the classroom. The first domain that I am

completing is Domain A: Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students. one of my first

artifacts will be showing a group of my students reading an informational text in a small group at

their appropriate grade level. According to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, candidates
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should understand, “how to use instructional materials that include a wide range of increasingly

complex literary and informational texts for the appropriate grade level.” (CTC, 2013). I use

small reading groups to make sure that the students are able to comprehend the text at their

reading level and adjust the text if necessary. The small groups help ensure that each student is

able to meet the standards that we are working on and the students are also able to collaborate

with each other during the small groups.

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References

Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2013, March). California teaching performance

expectations. Retrieved from https://www.ctc.ca.gov/docs/default-source/educator-

prep/standards/adopted-tpes-2013.pdf