7 Tips for Writing Your National Board Portfolio

National Board Certification is a challenging journey. Make it easier on yourself by avoiding a few common pitfalls.

It was 11:58 PM on December 17. My whole family was asleep, but I was holding a sort of sick vigil in my darkened dining room. I felt ill as I refreshed my NBPTS portal again and again. The results were due any minute.

“NBPTS wants to know that you intentionally design every component of your instruction to benefit the specific students you currently teach. ”

Achieving National Board Certification had been a years-long professional dream. I had spent comparable time on each of my components as I had on graduate classes – not to mention spending a comparable sum of money! I’d agonized over my writing, laboring to address all the required analysis in the NBCT page limit. I researched, read, and sought advice. “I might not have the strongest portfolio ever written,” I told my husband, “but NO ONE has ever obsessed over their submission more than I have!” (He already knew. Working toward my NBCT had been a family affair).

The clock clicked past midnight and the NBCT site seemed to be down. My heart pounded. I clicked my mouse yet again.

Fireworks filled my screen. “CONGRATULATIONS!” You are a National Board Certified Teacher!

Achieving my NBCT Certifcation was a career-long dream

Since that stressful night in 2017, I’ve completed my Maintenance of Certification and have had the pleasure of informally coaching and proofreading for many colleagues pursuing their own NBCT qualification.

My #1 bit of advice is this: NBPTS wants to know that you intentionally design every component of your instruction to benefit the specific students you currently teach. It’s not enough to describe what happened or what you did. You must show INTENTIONAL decision making at each step of your lesson design and delivery

Here are a few tips for accomplishing this.

1. Carefully plan your featured lesson.

You need your featured lesson to provide evidence that you intentionally crafted it for these kids at this moment in time, that it met specific needs of these kids, that you were able to adapt it dynamically to whatever happened during instruction, that it was effective, and that you know what to do next. This should really be your best teaching. I’ve seen candidates who videotaped an ordinary day in class or casually picked the next lesson out of their textbook and then tried to shoehorn it into the NBPTS requirements. It didn’t work well.

I believe a lot of the success of a NBCT portfolio happens before any writing, filming, or data collection takes place. Don’t skimp on the planning stage.

2. Answer every part of every question.

There are a lot of multi-part questions in the NBCT instructions. For example, the EAYA World Languages Component 4 first question asks, “What and who were the sources of information you gathered?…. How did you determine the relative importance of the different information you gathered?”

A close reading shows there are multiple parts to this question. The first part, “What were your sources of data?” is one we are used to answering as teachers. We are always pulling in student data from dozens of sources - from formal data (like standardized test scores, demographic information, GPA’s, etc.) to classroom-based data (such as attendance rates and classroom performance indicators) all the way down to subjective or intuitive data (such as student surveys or even students’ body language). Most of us regularly share this information with school-based administration and could easily write a few hundred words on all the different types of data we incorporate into our jobs.

“You want your commentary to include mostly analysis, with just enough minimal description to let the assessors know the context. ”

The second part of the question, “How did you determine the relative importance of the information you gathered?” is NOT a question we’re used to being asked! It’s easy in our flurry of writing to overlook it entirely. Of course, we prioritize data in our daily practice. NBPTS wants to know that your use of data is INTENTIONAL and why you (for example) based your lesson design off the data you gathered from a particular homework assignment rather than from standardized test scores.

Notice: the first part of the question is asking for description, the second part requires analysis. In writing your commentary, be sure to include a lot of analysis. More on this later.

And please note, I’ve only shared two of the four clauses in that initial question. Be attentive to answer every part of every question.

3. Use the Rubric Points as Sentence Starters.

There are many ways to write your commentary, but using the rubric as sentence starters does a few things.

• It keeps you focused as you write, reducing the risk of forgetting evidence assessors are looking for.

• It shows assessors exactly where your evidence is.

Take the third rubric point for Component 3. You’ll notice there are three clauses in this rubric point. Writing “I monitored student learning during the lesson by….” “I adjusted my instruction when I… because I during the lesson I assessed…. ” and “My use of x demonstrates my constructive feedback to students because…”: as long as you finish the sentences with substantive examples, your assessors will have the clear evidence they’re looking for of your professional practice.

4. Collect a lot more evidence than you need.

This is specifically related to the Component 3 video, but it applies to the other Components as well. If you only video tape one lesson, you’re stuck using whatever happens in that lesson. By videotaping several lessons, you give yourself options to showcase your strongest lesson design and to write about specific moments captured in that video.

In both my initial certification (2017) and my Maintenance of Certification (2022) I took multiple videos. Both times, during specific lessons I thought, “This is going great! I’m gonna use this video for sure!” Then, when I watched the videos I ended up using something different. In my experience, it’s just hard to tell in the moment what’s going to come through on the video. Sometimes, lessons that don’t go perfectly or where students struggle give you a better opportunity to showcase your strong instruction.

There’s a second advantage to collecting a lot of video; it helps your students (and you!) become accustomed to being videoed, which reduces nerves and self-consciousness. This approach also lets you troubleshoot tech and sound issues.

5. Briefly mention some theory (but don’t include long quotes).

Consider including a few phrases like “ABC theory states DEF, so I did XYZ in this lesson”. A brief mention of the theory is enough; you don’t need include further description or quotations. Your assessors are all experienced teachers in your discipline, and you can assume they are familiar with the theory. Keep the focus on your own teaching practice. Including research is not mandatory, but it does help prove your subject-area expertise.

6. Explain the Mundane.

We do so many good things automatically as teachers. Making sure that all students have access to supplies and technology, selecting resources based on our students’ reading levels or other needs, intentional use of physical space, gauging students’ body language, using various questioning techniques; effective teacher do all this and more almost intuitively.

NBPTS wants to know the WHY behind everything that happens during class and behind the scenes. Have a non-teacher watch your video and read your commentary and keep asking you “Why?” If your answer is, “OF COURSE I did X… Every teacher does that because…” - You need to include that rationale in your commentary.

7. Analyze, don’t describe.

After you’ve drafted your written commentary, go through and highlight all the description of what happened in class in one color and all the analysis in a second color. Then take a critical look. For most of us, the first draft is mainly description. But, NBPTS is less concerned about what happened than about WHY it happened. They want you to prove that your activities before, during, and after the lesson were all INTENTIONAL.

Here are some sentence starters to facilitate this.

• X happened in class, which showed me…. So I...

• The student said Y. This let me know…. So I...

• 14 students did Z, so I realized…. Then I…

You want your commentary to include mostly analysis, with just enough minimal description to let the assessors know the context.

For more tips on the NBCT process, check out these resources:

NBPTS webinars: this link has sign-ups for live webinars as well as recordings of past webinars.

Component 1 overview

My friend Erin Austin’s video overviews of NBCT Components for World Language teachers.

Facebook Group for NBCT support (any subject area)

Facebook Group for NBCT support (World Languages)

Component 2 overview

Component 3 overview

National Board Certification is a challenging journey, but the results are rewarding. If you’ve not yet achieved Certification, don’t be discouraged! Be sure you answer all the questions and include substantive analysis showing your intentional lesson design. You can do it!