by Stephanie CapalboStephanie Capalbo is working toward National Board Certification
as an Early Childhood Generalist.
August 8, 2003
After organizing my materials for the National Board process,
I have begun to feel a sense of ownership of the process and
of its expectations, and summer seems to offer the perfect opportunity
to take a stab at revising a rough draft of my first portfolio
entry. The goal of this entry is to describe my accomplishments
as a leader, collaborator, and communicator with families.
I was dismayed to learn that my natural style of writing
-- using descriptive and engaging sentences -- will not work
in writing portfolio entries. So, I wrote what came naturally
first, then went through and edited several times. Through
a support session I attended with my colleagues, I learned
a couple of techniques to help revise my writing:
- Use the National Board Standards to start each entry with
a strong topic sentence.
- Ensure that the question "How does that impact student
learning?" is a priority when writing.
In order to complete those revisions, however, I decided that
I needed to buy a reliable computer; my 1999 laptop freezes
up more than it runs. I had visions of being 99 percent done
with my portfolio entries and losing everything to a computer
glitch. Well, I bought a new desktop and -- not ten days later
-- it crashed! I lost everything I had revised! Luckily, I had
the pre-revised version on my "unreliable" laptop, so at least
I wasn't back at square one. My computer now is up and running
again, but I have learned a valuable lesson... print hard copies
and create a CD or floppy back up weekly.
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Stephanie
Capalbo received a bachelor's degree in psychology
with a concentration in elementary education from
Rhode Island College in May 1995. She became certified
in early childhood education in August 1997. For
the past six years, Stephanie has been teaching
kindergarten at Bradford
Elementary School in Westerly, Rhode Island.
In the fall of 2000, the kindergarten at Bradford
became the first and only kindergarten in the district
to receive accreditation by the National Association
for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). In
2003, Stephanie was named Westerly's Wal-Mart Teacher
of the Year. |
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