1. National Board Cohort
Meeting Six

2. Instructional Context Sheet

3. Directions: For each video, respond to the prompts below (no more than 1 single-spaced page in Arial 11-point font) by typing your responses within the brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter any original text on this form (including the header, footer, title, directions, and prompts); both the original text and your responses are included in the total page count allowed. Pages exceeding the maximum will not be scored. Please spell out the first occurrence of acronyms.
1. Briefly identify the type of school/program in which you teach and the grade/subject configuration (single grade, departmentalized, interdisciplinary teams, etc.).
2. Briefly identify. Grades: Age Levels:
Number of Students Taught Daily: Average Number of Students in Each Class: Courses:
3. Describe the social and physical context that influenced your instructional choices (available resources such as technology, scheduling of classes, room allocation—own or shared space—etc.).
4. Identify state and/or district mandates you must adhere to that influenced your instruction.
5. Identify the number, ages, and grades of students in the class featured in this video and the subject matter of the class.
6. Describe the relevant characteristics of this class that influenced your instructional planning, format, and strategies for this lesson (e.g., ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity; the range of abilities of the students; the cognitive, social/behavioral, attentional, sensory, and/or physical challenges of students with exceptional needs; the personality of the class).

4. Share Instructional Context Sheet Drafts
We will work in our groups to evaluate the drafts.
Give each other your Instructional Context drafts, Standards, Scoring Rubric, and Peer Evaluation sheets
Follow all NBPTS ethical guidelines while reviewing
Read the drafts and fill out the evaluation.
Discuss your findings. Ask reflective questions to help each other think more deeply about your teaching practices.

5. General Portfolio Writing Instructions
Three Types of Writing for NB
1. Descriptive – What happened?
2. Analytical – How, why, in what way?
3. Reflective – How would you handle the situation in the future?
Participants should be encouraged to review the writing about teaching section of the “General Portfolio Instructions” available at:

6. Key Points from the Instructions
Clarify how everything is purposeful. Answer key questions and make key points.
Ask “why” and “how” after everything to be more analytical and reflective.
Say it, and show it. NB is evidence-based.
Provide responses appropriate for your content, grade level, and portfolio questions.
Review your writing for clarity.

7. Descriptive Writing
Tell what has happened in your classroom. In this sense, descriptive writing overlaps with narrative writing since it portrays a sequence or procedure or process.
Description “sets the scene” of the work.
It is logically ordered and detailed.
Prompts use verbs such as “state,” “list,” “describe,” or start with “what” or “which.”

8. Descriptive Writing Continued
Your response should:
contain accurate and precise enumeration and/or explanation of critical features.
provide clear and logical ordering of the elements or features of the event, person, concept, or strategy described.
include all features or elements that an outsider (assessor) would need to be able to see as you see.
Taken straight from NB instructions

9. Analytical Writing Analytical writing:
provides reasons, motives and interpretation.
is grounded in evidence (materials you submit).
shows your thought process.
answers “how,” “why,” or “in what way(s).”
portrays insight when you are asked to identify a particularly successful moment in a sample of teaching and to tell why you regard it as successful.
includes a rationale, logic, examination of the parts that create the whole.

10. Reflective Writing Reflective writing:
includes your thought process (meditation and contemplation) after you teach.
demonstrates how you make decisions.
shows how you use what you learned from teaching experiences to inform and improve future practice.
portrays your self-analysis and retrospective consideration.

11. Analytical and Reflective Writing
These writings overlap but are not identical.
When you are asked to analyze or reflect, be certain that your response meets these criteria:
(a) The subject of the analysis is available to the reader (e.g., the student work samples).
(b) The focus of your writing is not on what (which is descriptive) but rather on why (which is both analytical and reflective).

12. Analytical and Reflective Writing Continued
You need to provide the following:
your interpretations of what happened during the lesson and its results;
your conclusions about what should come next;
and specific evidence and/or examples that support your analysis and conclusions, making your points clearly to the assessors.

13. Unpacking the Prompts
All portfolio-based Components are based on the same logical, but not linear path.
Begin with descriptions of the class, students featured, the unit being taught.
Move through planning and teaching stages to analyze the choices you and your students make.
End with reflection on the content, the students, and yourself.
Teachers expect students to have a beginning, a middle and end in their writing. The NB portfolio entries are not structured this way. Teachers need to respond to the prompts in the instructions to tell their story, even if the total entry does not seem to flow.

14. Planning for Instruction

15. Planning for Instruction
Answer this question – What does National Board value in terms of student engagement and learning environments?
Describe your learning (not activity) goals for the lesson. How did your knowledge of student influence these goals?
Describe the instructional strategies that will best help your students meet your learning goals. How will you differentiate based on what you know about your students?
Describe the instructional materials you will use in this lesson. Why are these materials appropriate?
Describe how you will know if your students have met your learning goals?
Describe how this lesson meets National Board’s expectations for student engagement and learning environments?

16. Video Analysis

17. Component Three: Analysis of a Video
Step one: View the video without sound. Complete the columns on the analysis handout that correspond to what you see as you watch the video.
Step two: Answer the questions on the video analysis worksheet.
Step three: View the video with sound. Complete the columns on the analysis handout that correspond to what you see as you watch the video.
Step four: Answer the questions on the video analysis worksheet that correspond to what you saw and heard.
Step five: Briefly review the standards for this certificate area and make connections to what you saw and heard. Make notes in the last two columns of the video analysis handout.
Step six: Describe the strengths and areas of growth seen in the lesson (through the National Board lens).
Step seven: Ask the candidate reflective questions.
This is similar to the activity from the last meeting, but it is intended for working with each other and/or evaluating their own video.

18. Homework, Preparation, and Advice
Continue videotaping (as necessary)
Compile student data (as necessary)
Finish the “Instructional Context Sheet” if you have not already done so.
Complete the written commentary.