Portfolio: Section Two

Tracking your knowledge base

This is the section of your portfolio where you track and document your work with the knowledge competencies.

There are many ways to engage this section of the portfolio.

Please remember that the point of this process is self assessment.

There is no way that one class, or indeed an entire degree, will enable you to meet fully all of these competencies. We hope to help you identify your strengths so as to challenge yourself in those areas, and recognize your weaknesses, so that you can work on building those competencies.

Perhaps the most straightforward way to work through this area of the portfolio is simply to go element by element and comment on where you are in relation to that competency. The first one, for example, reads “able to articulate a clear statement of their faith, and following that, a clear vision for providing leadership in supporting faith nurture across the lifespan.”

How able are you to do this? Where are you in the process? You could include your draft statement here, and if you’ve been involved with developing such a vision in your contextualization site, you could include it here.

Please be sure to “take your temperature” on each of these competencies. Where you still need more practice or exposure to meet one of them, try to suggest how you might do so in the future. If you are uncertain to what a particular competency even refers, please note that, too! The key is to begin to reflect on where you stand in relation to these goals.

The competencies for this section are as follows:

1a able to articulate a clear statement of their faith, and following that, a clear vision for providing leadership in supporting faith nurture across the lifespan

1b familiar with basic faith nurture and learning theories: faith development over the life cycle, multiple intelligences, constructivist learning design, developmental learning principles, cross cultural learning, etc.

1c familiar with the integration of biblical narrative, theological inquiry and ritual practice within religious education

1d familiar with the history and trajectories of faith nurture, particularly in the student’s primary denominational/faith community context, so as to be able to assess a specific context and develop learning strategies within it

1e familiar with a variety of ways of supporting, structuring, facilitating and trouble-shooting learning communities

1f familiar with multiple models of faith nurture

You will notice that most of these use the language of “familiarity” rather than expertise, but familiarity can mean many things. You needn’t itemize everything that you’ve learned in a specific area, but you should be able to call to mind examples of moments when you demonstrated such familiarity, or alternatively, moments when it was clear to you that you didn’t yet understand a specific competency, or how that competency connected with religious education practice.

If there are elements that are still growing edges for you (and there should be at least a few!), please list some ways in which you anticipate working on these competencies.