Alyssa C. Smith’s Tenure Portfolio
Midwood HS
About Me
What to Expect
How to Use
Gratitude
Hello! My name is Alyssa C. Smith and I am ecstatic to be reaching the tenure stage of my career. In the following portfolio you’ll be getting a snapshot of my development over the past four years, and ways in which I can continue to grow.
Despite having to navigate a pandemic and our subsequent return, I have persevered and managed to teach every core Social Studies Course - Global I (three semesters); Global II (three semesters); USH (six semesters); Government (one semester); and Economics (one semester) - in addition to being asked to take on Midwood’s former principal’s AP Human Geography course.
I have had students of all abilities and languages and getting to know them - and adjusting my practice to my needs - has been a huge highlight of my career. Actively collaborating with colleagues, involving myself in the Hornet community, and seeking external development opportunities.
Below are the three core sections of my portfolio, and some of the materials you can find within them.
Section I: Teacher Practice
Section II: Student Performance Data
Section III: Contributions & Professionalism
My tenure portfolio is designed to be interactive, meaning that you can click on various tabs and links to jump from section to section. Simply click and the portfolio will take you there.
Give it a try →
I wish to use this space to thank all of my students, colleagues, and supervisors who have helped me become the teacher I am today, and who will no doubt continue to help me grow professionally and personally.
Table of Contents
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ELL Case
SPCED Case
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Section III
Section I
Welcome!
To the left are folders that will take you to six core components of my portfolio. As you explore, hyperlinks to these folders are present at the bottom of each slide so you can skip around at any time. Each section is designed to show how I expanded my practice these past four years.
Let's get started!
Section I
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ELL Case
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Table of Contents
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Using Data-Based Instruction
Section I | Teacher Practice
At the center of my daily practice is utilizing student data to better inform my instruction. Every semester, I maintain a detailed log of students’ progress on various assignments that help me place them in groups, determine who receives modified documents and instruction, and help me target my instruction to students’ need, skills, and ability levels.
For instance, students in Global History are currently seating homogeneously to allow allow students to collaborate on analyzing documents and producing products of their choice.
When engaging in projects, however, students are often paired heterogeneously to allow for collaboration and division of tasks based upon their abilities.
Furthermore, Ms. Monticciolo and I collaborate on daily recall questions that students complete prior to the Do Now in order to assess their knowledge, review for the Regents, promote high attendance, and identify students - SPCED and non - for targeted intervention plans. Still a work in progress, here is the data we collected for the Spring 2022 semester.
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Sample Data Tracker
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Feedback & Revision - Mapping History
Section I | Teacher Practice
One project that I have been able to revise multiple times throughout the years it a multi-layered exploration of various parts of history: Ibn Battuta’s journeys; settler colonialism in the Americas; the transformation of Africa.
My third observation in 2018-2019 concerned this project and the biggest piece of feedback was that students who were not actively contributing to the poster were merely sitting there. Thus, when I redesigned the project for US History, I gave students the additional task of researching information by using their notes and online resources. Furthermore, in 2021, I chose to pair students heterogeneously to give each student a chance to flourish in an area where they could contribute: artistically, locating information in notes, or research. Students’ projects were placed on display in the hallway as my bulletin board assignment for the year.
At the end of January 2022, my Global History students completed a similar project where they mapped the history of the African continent. By implementing feedback from that initial observation - and other observations that I have received - all students were actively engaged and participating in discussions throughout the entirety of the project.
I am currently planning on implementing the project again when students are analyzing revolution and change in Latin America, but TBC . . .
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Mapping African Transformation, Jan 2022
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To Remote Learning . . .
Section I | Teacher Practice
Halfway through my second year of teaching we were abruptly required to shift to remote learning because of the onset of COVID-19. Nevertheless, I found various ways to continue to engage with students, and these achievements in establishing students relationships can be found in Section III.
One assessments that transitioned particularly well to remote learning was a timeline summative assessment that students completed for Unit 11.3: Colonialism and Division. While in person, students created comic strips that outlined the history of expansion and division over slavery in the United States utilizing provided events. Remotely, students utilized Canva.com to create a digital version of the timeline by selecting one of three provided questions to answer at the end - a change I made to the assignment after feedback I received on it the first year it was completed. Furthermore, back in person, students in my Global IV courses are currently creating a similar timeline project on the long-20th Century in either Russia or China. In this case, they can create their projects on paper or digitally.
Another example of a lesson I adapted to remote learning was a stations activity on slavery in the American colonies. While in person, students rotated stations while my co-teacher and I led individual groups. For remote learning I took these stations, modified documents and resources, and generated an interactive Google Slide that students answered questions within and completed a final task.
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Timeline Project Sample
Continue to the next slide to see more examples if digital activities & student samples →
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To Remote Learning . . .
Section I | Teacher Practice
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Digital Syllabus (US)
Enduring Issues Notebook
here you can find more lessons and assessments I adopted for remote learning, as well as student samples.
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. . . and Back Again
Section I | Teacher Practice
Just as I had to drastically adjust my practice from in-person to remote learning, I had to readjust back to in-person learning while we are (still) experiencing a global pandemic.
The hardest parts transitioning back for me was promoting group work and re-engaging students in verbal discussion with one another, while still offering social-emotional support. To facilitate, I sat students in appropriate groups and after suggestions from colleagues of mine started assessing students on accountability talk to ensure that they engage in small groups or with the class during frequent discussions from turn-and-talk to socratic seminars on the New Gilded Age (US) and the Industrial Revolution (Global).
A positive aspect of returning to in-person learning following a year of remote is being able to better integrate technology and other interactive activities into the classroom. A project that has become a favorite for students is utilizing https://native-land.ca/ to explore former indigenous tribes around the United States, in addition to the Smithsonian’s Native Knowledge 360 curriculum to explore broken treaties. Students have also appreciated being able to collaborate on platforms such as Padlet (see left) and Mentimeter, while being able to complete projects that had been digital by hand - such as a newspaper article on Latin American Revolutions.
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Padlet on Wealth Inequality (01/03/2022)
see here for additional activities and assessments I modified from remote to in-person learning.
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Section I | Teacher Practice
I have consistently been rated Effective (E) for all four completed years of my teaching career, and am currently on track to be effective again for 2022-2023.
see here for all of my formal and informal observations over the past four years. for each observation you can find the official report, my submitted lesson plan, and both teacher and student materials.
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MOTP Growth 2018-2023
MOTP Growth: Years 4 & 5 (thus far)
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Observation & Growth: 2018-2023 - Reflection
Section I | Teacher Practice
I am incredibly grateful for the feedback that I received and proud of my success in growing exponentially across all areas, particularly 1A, 1E, 2A, 2D, 3C, 3D, and 4E. Areas I would like to reflect on in particular are 1E, 3B and 4E.
My biggest area of growth has been in 1E - Designing Coherent Instruction. My first year of teaching, it took me time to gage where my students were at and most of the year to determine how they best received instruction. Following feedback from my previous APs and professional development here at Midwood, I began implementing more differentiation techniques, spent more time on developing vocabulary, reviewing information, and breaking down documents and activities together. Nevertheless, I still have room to grow: in my most recent observation, for instance, Ms. Vershleiser and I discussed how to better narrow down the focus of content when covering US imperialism in the Philippines and thematic discussions in US History.
The area where I still have room for the most growth is 3B, generating questioning and discussion techniques. I have taken various steps to improve in this category - such as implementing Ms. Vershleiser’s feedback from Observation #2 in 2021-2022 that students should collaborate on constructing their arguments together and implementing a technique. When students debated Mao Zedong in H4, pairs collaborated on their graphic organizers and arguments together, unaware of their roles. I have also continued to make the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) [Harvard University] a centerpiece of my classroom, allowing students to engage with one another in developing their own questions. On Election Day 2022, I led a professional development on this QFT technique, which was then also utilized in our December department meetings. (Materials for this PD can be found with materials for 4E).
Finally, I have found incredible joy in being able to grow in 4E, especially since returning to in-person schooling; I have gained a lot of invaluable knowledge from my colleagues. For instance, after observing Ms. Ioffe’s AP World History course, I implemented her method of having students build on their responses to the inquiry question. After observing and exchanging pedagogical guides with Mr. Eisenhardt, we were able to collaborate on activities such as students Cold War Vocabulary and I utilized his method of having students identify which historical thinking skills would be best for a series of documents.
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1E, 3B & 4E Materials
Additional evidence of 4E can be found in Section III.
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Regents Data, Spring 2022
Section II | Student Performance
Combining students from the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semester, 95.6% of students passed the exam and 85.7% of students with IEPs who attending the exam passed.
These scores were possible due to extensive intervention with students, a rigorous curriculum that balanced content knowledge and historical thinking skills, and hardworking students.
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Regents Data, June 2022
In June of 2022, students took the Global History & Geography Regents exam for the first time in nearly five years following the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also the first time that I’ve had students take a Regents exam because of those circumstances, and my co-teacher and I spent the entire year getting students ready to pass and exceed expectations on the exam that had only been given a few times prior.
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Improving Overall Student Performance: Fall 2022
Section II | Student Performance
By breaking down individual lessons, extending content and skills building into multiple days, meeting with students for individual conferences, and allowing students to reflect upon and resubmit a predetermined number of assignments, student growth in the Fall of 2022 went from an overall baseline average of 74 to a final semester average of just under 85. Student growth within my classroom continues to grow in the Spring 2023 semester, with performance continuing to increase throughout the first marking period.
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On the following slides, you’ll be able to see my interventions for ELL students, SPCED students, and students struggling academically →
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Setting ELL Students Up for Success
Section II | ELL Case Study
One of my largest areas of growth over the past four years has been modifying lessons, materials, and assessments for English Language Learners (ELL).
My first year of teaching, I taught a class of 25 ELL students with a range of 6 different languages with no assistance. At first, I thought the best method for students would be to provide the text in their native language alongside English (see here). After a few weeks, I realized that nothing had changed and sought out the advice of ELL-certified teachers at my school who not only sat down with me and provided me with much-needed advice for ELL instruction, they guided me towards various resources & guides that emphasize the importance of vocabulary practice, images, and highly structured discussion.
During Fall 2021 I was entrusted to be a push-in with Ms. Mishan’s US History class in order to support ELL students in the class. In the box to the right hand side, you will be able to see the overall growth that ELL students achieved in our class, various lessons that I modified to meet students’ needs, and additional supports I provided to guide students in this discussion-heavy course. In the Spring of 2022, I have been placed with Ms. Doyle for two periods to continue to aid with ELL students and have since completed multiple PDs on supporting ELL students, offered by both Otis and the UFT.
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ELL Student Case Study
Section II | ELL Case Study
One of the English Language Learners that I worked closest with was Veronika Tereshkun, who I had the privilege of having in my US History course for the entirety of the school year. Veronika always engaged in class and asked questions, even if in the chat and with her peers. Most days, Veronika would stay on the Google Meet with me even after our 20 minute class was over to review assignments, breakdown readings more closely, and work on her writing.
On the following slide, you’ll be able to see some of the progress Veronika made throughout just the fall semester that she was in my course, with even more gains made during her second semester. At the beginning - when I asked students for a sample of their writing and their close reading of a primary source formally assessed for completion - Veronika was only able to hand me a sentence or two in her response and struggled to interpret documents and evidence in her own words. By the end of the semester, Veronika successfully completed an eight-paragraph paper that asked students to propose a program that would help mitigate racial tensions in the United States, making comparisons between the backlash to the Reconstruction Era and the backlash to Obama’s 2008 election. Not only did she write fluently, she conducted her own independent research and was able to pull out the most critical information from our course documents and her subsequent research.
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Section II | ELL Case Study
Student Writing Sample, September
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Student Writing Sample, January
As one of the first assignments of the semester that I use to establish a baseline of students’ writing, students are asked to connect “A City Upon a Hill” to the idea of “American Exceptionalism.” This assignment is merely graded for completion and is used for my own data collection to understand where students are individually and collectively.
At the end of the semester, students are asked to create a proposal to help racial tensions in the US. Here, Veronika brilliantly links the response to Obama’s election to the responses to Reconstruction, and proposes how the history of race in America can be taught differently.
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Smith Tenure 2023
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Working with and Learning from Special Education Students
Section II | SPCED Case Study
One of my biggest areas of pedagogical growth over these past four years is in supporting students with IEPs and 504s and differentiating their instruction, making it increasingly accessible to all learners - growing from Developing to Highly Effective. To the right, you can see how my SPCED students have improved in the fall semester and over the course of my time at Midwood High School. Below, you can explore how I have differentiated my instruction in all four core components: content, process, product, and environment. On the next slide, you will find a detailed case study outlining how I worked extensively with one SPCED student and improved her performance throughout our semester together.
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SPCED Growth: Fall 2022
Evidence of Differentiated Instruction
Here are detailed SDI Charts and Progress Monitoring for my SPCED students for Fall 2022.
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SPCED Case Study
Section II | SPCED Case Study
One SPCED students I worked incredibly close with over our semester together was Rachelle Charles, who demonstrated phenomenal growth in decoding of readings and composing brief writing tasks, going from a sentence or two to well-developed paragraphs.
While her IEP is currently under review, at the time I had Rachelle she was classified as having a speech and language impairment along with other physical disabilities. Rachelle required extensive graphic organizers to help categorize her thoughts, and work one-on-one with an instructor to decode words, verbally say new vocabulary, and applying these skills to unfamiliar multisyllabic words. Rachelle’s writing also contained errors in syntax, but benefits greatly from using various stages of editing to strengthen her understanding of grammatical rules and organizational strategies. According to her IEP, Rachelle also attended group speech-language therapy at least 2x per week.
Below, you can see work that both Ms. Monticciolo and I aided Rachelle and accomplishing at three different points in the semester. Rachelle was able to achieve the growth that she did through extended one-on-one support after class and during office hours, modeling, scaffolding, and frequent outreach and communication with her parents. For Assignments #1 and #2 below, Rachelle worked off of a personalized template to help her organize critical information. By Assignment #3, Rachelle was able to organize her thoughts and use of evidence with the same scaffolds other SPCED students were using and only needed to meet with either of us thrice to accomplish her goals.
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Providing Academic Intervention for Struggling Students
Section II | Academic Intervention
Following completion of the first marking period, I identified students that were struggling in my class, in their previous social studies courses, and overall. For each of these students, I worked with them individually outside of class to complete core assignments that were fundamental to their knowledge of social studies and Regents-aligned skills; half of these assessments were formative, half of them were summative.
Here you can see how these students grew in my course throughout the semester. The graph on the left portrays the overall growth of these students, while this spreadsheet breaks down how each student progressed individually through historical thinking and Regents-aligned assessments.
All targeted students were successfully able to raise their averages in their US and Global History classes, many of whom went from having a failing to a passing grade. On the following side, you’ll be able to see a detailed case study of what a targeted academic intervention looked like for my students.
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Intervention Growth
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Academic Intervention Case Study
Section II | Academic Intervention
One student I wanted to highlight my interventions with further is Sarah Ingie Luc Lanys. After receiving doing fairly well in Social Studies her freshman year, Sarah had a hard time transitioning into remote learning, and an even harder time transitioning back in person when I had her this past fall.
For marking period one, Sarah technically received an NS - or No Show - since she attended my class less than three times. After conducting multiple outreach to her other teachers, her guidance counselor, and her guardians, we were all able to get Sarah back into the school building and begin re-engaging in her courses. By second marking period, Sarah’s NS turned into a 55.
In addition to completing and excelling in a series of intervention assessments and taking the opportunity to participate in classroom debates and seminars, Sarah was able to pass H5 and begin to feel confident in herself and her relationship with her peers again, even coming to monitor with some of them for me during their lunch periods.
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Growth through Intervention
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Prioritizing Student Relationships
Section III | Contributions & Professionalism
For me, the highlight of my job is developing meaningful relationships with my students. At the beginning of every semester, I reach out to students with a beginning of the year survey to learn about not just their learning preferences, but their hobbies, tastes in music, favorite television shows, etc. and use that to develop a rapport with students.
Knowing that building student relationships should be an even more daunting task during remote learning, I personally hand-wrote and mailed my students postcards from various national parks, welcoming them into my (and Ms. Monticciolo) classes for the semester. You can click here for the Thank You notes I received from students for sending those postcards, in addition to the gratuity I received over Google Meet.
See here for other notes of gratuity I have received from students over the years, including multiple nominations for Teacher of the Year.
Sample BOY Postcard
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Developing Curriculum to Reflect Our Student Population
Section III | Contributions & Professionalism
One of my biggest goals as a history teacher is to develop curriculum that reflect our students’ demographics, community, and personal interests. Heading into the 2020-2021 school year, I completely redesigned the US History curriculum to reflect an intersectional approach that critically incorporates the history of indigenous Americans, Black Americans, LGBTQIA+ Americans, immigrants, and women. Some lessons and assessments that reflect this intersectionality includes:
My work incorporating diverse perspectives into my curriculum has culminating in my development of a new Social Studies elective on the Struggle for Equality in the United States. While still a work in progress, this elective will be implemented during a spring semester and includes units on settler colonialism, race, gender, class and organized labor, disability, and mental illnesses. I am looking to further develop this curriculum over time and adapt it to the needs of my students. I was asked to share my progress on this elective with the superintendent for their visit to Midwood.
Midwood Student Demographics
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Section III | Contributions & Professionalism
In Global History, I have collaborated extensively these past two years with Mr. Eisenhardt on developing Project-Based Assessments that are rigorous and gear students away from a Eurocentric view of Global History - including the examination of whether Europe should pay reparations to imperializing nations, and comparing the totalitarian leaders of the 20th Century to those of today.
Furthermore, a monumental goal of mine in teaching Global History is to approach it through a non-Eurocentric lens. For instance, my summative assessment for Unit 10.1: Revolutions & Challenges to Traditional Authority asks students to make connections between the international and local context to the various revolutions occurring in Latin America during the 19th Century and modern 21st century conflicts.
In Fall 2021, students were given the chance to explore resistance to imperialism in Africa by researching one of seven major uprisings throughout the continent and reflect on how those uprisings demonstrated the autonomy that Africans maintained in the face of imperialism. Most recently, students composed a mini-Enduring Issues Essay on propaganda, putting efforts made in Russia and China in conversation with the American government during the Red Scare.
Latin American Revolutions Sample
African Presentation Sample
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Additional Professional Development
Section III | Contributions & Professionalism
Pedagogically, I found the PDs on developing Project Based Learning (PBL) and establishing routines for Special Education students to be the most helpful in my practice. I have continued to work on creating Project-Based units for both my US and Global classes. Furthermore, I found the establishing routines PD particularly helpful when it came to remote learning and helping students manage their time without having the school bell or teachers physically in front of them to direct them.
I also found myself learning just as much by leading PDs as participating in them. Initially I hesitated as a new teacher, but with the support of my colleagues.
In addition to official PDs, I had simultaneously been pursuing a Masters of Education at Teachers College at Columbia University for the past three years (having obtained by BS in Social Studies Ed from NYU ‘18). There, I have been able to complete the Reimagining Education Institute which trains educators in working in racially diverse schools as well as courses on urban education, race and gender in education, gender and curriculum, intersectionality and curriculum, and indigenous education. I completed my degree on May 18, 2022.
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here you can find evidence of all of the CTLE hours I have accumulated these past four years.
As stressful and overwhelming as it was, I have found that attending graduate school while simultaneously teaching has had tremendous benefits on my pedagogical skills, the ways in which I connect to my students, and how I understand the way that educational institutions function on a daily basis.
feel free to check out the syllabi for the courses I have taken thus far.
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“It’s always a beautiful day to be a Hornet!”
Section III | Contributions & Professionalism
Unfortunately, having my first year at Midwood High School be interrupted halfway through by COVID-19 getting involved in the school community became, for sports were halted and clubs/events were moved to virtual.
Nevertheless, I continued to make important contributions by advising various clubs, including Tea Club which offers mental and emotional support for a variety of students, the Midwood Coding Club, Young Women’s Leadership, and, this year. Midwood Unsolved.
Tree Distribution
Last year, a student reached out me personally to be a faculty ally for Midwood’s first PrideFest. You can find their website - and my profile - here: https://pridefest8.wixsite.com/my-site
See here for a personalized letter from Mr. Kolotkin, Midwood High School’s Coordinator of Student Affairs.
In March, a student contacted me asking to supervise their tree-plenish distribution event on Saturday, April 17th. The event was featured and I was interviewed for an article in the annual addition of Midwood Argus.
Me!
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Final Takeaways
Thank you for taking the time to review my tenure portfolio. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first four years with the DOE - my past three with Midwood. I have found my time incredibly rewarding and appreciate the growth, despite the challenges. I genuinely hope to continue to learn and grow with my students and colleagues for years to come.
Thank you!
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