State Dept. of Education Staff:
BEST project leaders, teachers-in-residence, and staff

BEST Preparation & Organizing Sessions from CEA:
CEA has developed several tools to help year 1 and year 2 teachers prepare, and organize for, for the BEST portfolio.

For Year 1 Teachers
The following 8 Preparation Sessions are best done with a group of colleagues, and facilitated by a mentor teacher or other experienced collegue. These sessions focus on helping you understand the concepts and skills about teaching on which the portfolio is based. Each session includes learning objectives and activity materials, and is designed to last for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. We recommend that the sessions be done in sequential order.

 

For Year 2 Teachers
The following 3 Organizing Sessions are best done with a group of colleagues, and facilitated by a mentor teacher or other experienced collegue. These sessions focus on helping you become acquainted with the portfolio handbook, understanding the portfolio guiding questions, and organizing the portfolio tasks. Each session includes learning objectives and activity materials, and is designed to last for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. We recommend that the sessions be done in sequential order.

 Portfolio organizing tools: helping hands in year 2 - is a packet of information and tools, which you can download and print, to use for becoming acquainted with the portfolio handbook, organizing your time and the portfolio tasks, and suggestions for videotaping.

For Mentors and other Experienced Teachers
13. Local Association Support
Help your colleagues increase their awareness of the need to support new teachers, and learn easy ways all teachers can get involved.

Commentary Forms
When you write your BEST portfolio commentaries, the portfolio handbook doesn't always require a particular form to be used. In such cases, you're free to determine what format your commentary will have. These commentary forms were developed to set up a suggested format, and to take some of the "busy-work" out of formatting your commentaries. The headings used on the commentary forms come directly from the commentary questions you must answer from the portfolio handbook. These files are in Word so you can save them on your computer and edit them.
        

Portfolio Forms  (From the portfolio handbook provided by the State Department of Education). These forms must be used in the development of your portfolio unless otherwise indicated. These are all Word documents. Save them on your computer for your own use.

T.2 Unit Overview
T.2 Unit Overview
T.2 Unit Overview
T.3 Featured Lesson
T.2 Overview Planning
T.2 Block Plan
T.2 Unit Overview
T.2 Student Description
T.3 Learning Segment
T.2 Unit Overview
T.2 Unit Overview
T.2 Instruction Review
T.3 Videotape Review

Portfolio Changes 2007-2008
See what changes have been made to this year's portfolio requirements for each of the content areas below.
Elementary 
English 
Math 
Music
Physical Education
Science
Social Studies 
Special Education 
Visual Arts 
World Languages 

BEST Portfolio Performance Feedback Rubrics
These rubrics describe different levels of teaching performance that can be seen through a BEST portfolio. Portfolio scorers select statements from these rubrics to describe your performance as seen in your portfolio. As a new teacher completing the portfolio, you can use these rubrics to review your portfolio and make appropriate changes to it before submitting it to the State Department of Education for scoring.

Rubrics for portfolios submitted using the 2006-07 and 2007-08  portfolio handbook: Click here