Changes to the National Board Certification Process

Hello bloggers! Chances are, if you've found this blog it is because you are thinking about National Board Certification or have already taken the leap. First, congratulations! This will be the most intense, frustrating, awesome, rewarding and terrifying thing you ever do in your career. Guaranteed.

First, let me introduce myself to you. My name is Raye and I am a National Board Certified Teacher in Early/Middle Childhood Literacy. I first began the National Board process in the 2011-2012 school year when I taught 2nd grade. I missed certification on the first try by decimals (0.375 of a point to be exact). I pulled my big girl pants on and redid one entry and certified in November 2013. I am going into my 10th year of teaching in 2015-2016 and will be teaching 3rd grade (ironically enough in my old 2nd grade room where I began the National Board Process!). I have taught 2nd, 4th and 5th grades prior to this coming year. Currently I am a 2nd year doctoral candidate at Concordia University-Portland working on my Ed.D. in Teacher Leadership. Someone has to change the world and I figure it may as well be me :) My ultimate goal is to start a teacher-led school in West Michigan where I live.

National Board Certification is the most amazing thing I have ever done. To be 100% honest, people scoff and think I did it so I could add NBCT behind my name when I sign things (and yes, I do proudly add letters behind my name in a professional capacity). These naysayers do not understand. I did not go through this arduous process because I wanted to add letters behind my name. I wanted to make a difference in education. Period. No one can take away the growth I made as a teacher during the certification process. You are focused to objectively evaluate yourself and really look for areas where you can grow and in turn help students grow. I would say that for me, the biggest takeaway from the whole process is, it is not about you. It is about kids. Period. 

With that said, the National Board process is currently under revision. The biggest changes are in the timeline for completion and the names things are called. When I worked on National Board, there were "entries" and now they are called "components". At that time, you could complete all four components in one year; as of this writing, that is not possible as some components have not been released under the revision yet. If one was to begin National Board Certification process today (July 9, 2015), you would not be able to certify until November of 2017 at the earliest. This is because the final component will not be released until the 2016-2017 school year. 

You can find information on all of the available certification areas here. This page provides you with links to the information for Components 1 and 2 for all of the available certificates. (Component 3 is due to be released this fall.) I will mostly discuss the EMC Literacy certificate since that is the certification that I have and know well.

There are 4 Components total.

1. Content Knowledge - This is a computer based exercise. It used to be called "Assessment Center" and was usually done AFTER the portfolio entries. For the EMC Literacy certificate there are 3 exercises (Analyzing Student Reading, Writing Development and Literacy Across the Curriculum). There are also 40 multiple choice questions included in this component.
2.  Differentiation in Instruction - This used to be Entry 1 or 2 (depending upon the certificate). This component allows you to show your ability to plan instruction based upon a student's needs and provide work samples and written commentary to provide evidence of that. 
3. Learning Practice and Teaching Environment (information available fall 2015)
4. Effective and Reflective Practitioner (information available fall 2016)

Each component costs $475 so $1900 for the whole process (sounds like a lot but it was $2500 when I did it!). You can choose to take as few or as many components in a year as you want with up to three years to complete them all (this will be true even after all 4 components are revised and available).


Personally, I would have appreciated having the option to do two one year and two the next year. When I was a retake candidate and only had one entry to focus upon for the whole school year, it was soooo much easier on me mentally. I did not have to fuss or worry about all of the other components looming over me.  As more information becomes available about the revision process and as new components are available, I will update this information.

I DID IT!!

It's that time.....

We got an email last weekend letting us know that they are preparing for score release. No exact date yet...but if its anything like the past few years, we'll get our scores next Saturday. Last year they came out the weekend before Thanksgiving. 

I'm honestly not that nervous. If I certified, awesome-sauce. If I didn't...well, we'll come to that bridge when we have to. I truly think I will make it this time though. My entry from the spring was so much better than my entry the year before. And with only a half a point needed before the weight....I'm optimistic that I will certify this year.

Stay tuned.

Today is the day!

After months of procrastinating, polishing, reworking, pulling out my hair and just generally being SO OVER THIS PROCESS, I am finally submitting my final retake of Entry 1. I feel much more confident about the entry this year than I did last year. My good friend read the entry and gave me some great feedback on it too. I think that more and more throughout this process I have had to realize I am a learner too. I'm not perfect by any means and this process really puts that in your face whether or not you want to admit it! I've made some great gains right along with my kiddos and I will never regret deciding to do National Board.

I only need a half point before the weighting to certify on this entry and I think by looking through what I had a year ago and what I've done this year...there just isn't any way that I won't make it. I'm cautiously optimistic though--I was SO SURE last year that I'd nail it and I didn't. By 0.375 of a point before the weight. So I'm not trying to be cocky. I'm trying to be realistic. I KNOW this entry is a million times better than the one I submitted last year. Is it perfect? I doubt it. But my insights toward my own teaching and the growth of my student are much better after having gone through the full process last year and being able to focus solely on one entry all of this year. 

I'm glad that I've procrastinated as ridiculous as that probably sounds....it has allowed me to really step back, really read the entry again with fresh eyes, get feedback from someone else and then sit on it again. This is exactly how I did my master's project too. I was gung ho on it and then sat on it for almost a month before I submitted my final copy. 

It will be a huge relief to get this thing off my hands for the last time. I am so glad I did most of it last year when I had one solid grade because I don't know how I would have managed to do it all this year with a split grade. I probably would be in a padded cell. My biggest realization is that this is not the kind of writing that I like to do because you can't write it like a term paper--you HAVE to cut the fluff which means you are often grammatically incorrect and it drives me insane to write like that. Crazy insane. 

Alas, this is it. I'm not going to have to write like this again. At least not until renewal time and that's 10 years away. I may be willing to stomach it again nine years from now.

It's the final countdown!

It's been awhile since I've updated here on this blog and figured I would for the few people who read it :)

It's been both a blessing and a curse that National Board went to the electronic portfolio this year. Blessing because I have had an extra month and a half to gather materials, write and get some feedback (a very dear friend that I met through Round 1 of NB last year is reading for me and providing some feedback). It's also a curse because I have been able to put it off a long time and that isn't always so good.

I submitted my draft to my reader on Sunday and am just waiting for her to email me back. I only need a half point to certify and I can guarantee that my writing is much better this time around having been able to wait a bit longer and focus on only one entry rather than 4. This time last year I was prepping for the AC and it's been almost one year since I took that test. Hard to believe. 

It's been a crazy year teaching a 4/5 split but I've almost made it! I am really excited to get my friend's feedback, make my revisions and send that sucker off, hopefully for the last time! 

Then, of course, it is the waiting game AGAIN until November when I hopefully log in and see "CONGRATULATIONS".

Time to Move It...

I have been horrible with working on National Board this school year. Grrrr. I have all of my samples, my student selected and everything put into my paper template...I just need to write the entry now. It's hard to get started because there is always so much to do for my classroom (even with a student teacher who is greatly sharing my load).

 

Alas, it is time. NB announced earlier last month that they are no longer using the infamous blue box. Everything will be submitted electronically. That means I have from April 1-May 31 to submit my portfolio entry. That is crazy but awesome (ooooh how I could have used that last year!).

 

I am not going to wait until the last second. My goal is to (hopefully) get my entry written, proofed and read by a NB certified friend by April 1 so I can make corrections/clarifications if I need to and submit it when I get back from Spring Break. Then it's done, out of my hair and I'm happy.

 

I'm so glad I went through the big process last year because there is just no way it would get done this year with everything going on at work. Whew!

Getting it going

I have purposely put off working on my retry for National Board until now. I've gathered some samples and whatnot but I haven't really done anything  except read my directions again and then shove them into the folder I made for my retake and push it out of sight again.

I think when push comes to shove, that I'm ready to admit how disappointed I was to not certify last year. I busted my ass, neglected myself, my family and even my job sometimes in pursuit of this and I still didn't make it. It's frustrating to realize you can kill yourself and it doesn't matter because you're just a number in a big ole stack of entries that someone is assessing.

I don't like being a downer. It's draining emotionally and physically. So I've avoided my reality for awhile.

With 2013, I'm not avoiding anymore. My whole life tendency has been to push things under the rug and "deal with it later". Well, later is here as far as National Board is concerned. 

I am ready to bust out the instructions and go back over them again and again. I need to highlight and make note of areas that perhaps I didn't really quite answer last time. Then I am going to look at the samples I already have and decide on a student to focus upon. 

(Note I am only working on Entry 1 for my retake since I only need a half point higher on the entry to transfer to the 6 points I needed to certify.)

This is the entry that focuses upon Promoting Literacy Development through Writing. To begin with I gathered samples from about six or seven of my students, both grades from one of our weekly writing tests. The students have to construct an answer to a question and use evidence from the text to support their response. I thought this would be a great "baseline" paper to help me determine areas where the student(s) needed extra instruction or support.

The first actual sample will be the December writing prompt where my students had to write about a special person, place or event. I can use the baseline information from the weekly test to set my goals, then use the writing sample to show progress, growth and where the student still needs further instruction. 

For the final sample, I plan to use the February writing prompt that we use which is a compare/contrast essay. I think this will show a range of writing for meaning instances as well as allowing me to help  my students to make connections in their writing across writing genres (ie that you still can use the same strategies for a constructed response as for a narrative as for a compare/contrast piece). 

Who knows if this will make it this time but I'm gonna give it my all and be positive.

I have until April 15 (two weeks longer than first timers have) to turn in the entry. I am not going to wait that long. Depending upon when our final writing prompts are finished in February, I hope to send my entry off by  the middle of March at the latest. Then its back to the waiting game like last year--waiting eight months to find out if you've made it or not.

Reworking

In some ways, after a whole  year of focusing upon National Board, it's weird to put my focus there again. Although, admittedly, it is so different this time around. I already know the process. I know my timeline. I know my standards. What I need to do is focus upon what I missed the last time and push myself to make sure I demonstrate that evidence this time.

It's just weird. Everyone totally expected me to pass/certify this time. I am the one that it affects yet I seem to be the only one who isn't mad about it. It's what it is. I guess after the year I had last (school) year, and knowing where I will end up, eventually, it seems like small beans in the long run. It isn't going to cost me my job or make me a worse teacher without those extra few letters behind my name.

I have already begun to collect some work samples. Granted, I am MUCH more content teaching the upper grades. I feel better there and more in my element. I'm glad that I have the chance to redo this one with kids at an age I'm more comfortable with. I selected several writing samples from a weekly written response test we have to do. I'm not focused on the content of their answer but rather their method, the writing itself. Some of my students are phenomenal at writing constructed responses and some still provide short, choppy answers that aren't what I expect them to be able to produce, especially after several months together in the classroom.

I am going to use these works as my "before". They won't make it into the entry itself but are going to guide my instruction as we push through this next unit on personal narratives so I can gauge the students' progress from one stage to the next in terms of their writing. After the personal narrative we are doing a unit on compare/contrast writing so the personal narrative and CC samples may well be what ends up going in the entry. 

I'm taking an entirely different approach to this entry this time around. My thinking has changed by reflecting upon what I did before and what I think I need to do now. I'm excited to see where this entry takes me this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for so much this year. A big one is the opportunity to show my true teaching bad-self with a retake on E1. I have refused, since I got my results, to look at this as a disappointment or woe-is-me. I'm making it a positive. I AM grateful that I do have the chance to retake it and make it the best it can be so I can shout in triumph a year from now that I am National Board Certified. 

It's a PROCESS people....

I understand why people who don't certify in their first year of pursuing National Board often just don't tell people. I swear, if one more person tells me it is "ridiculous" or "unfair" that I didn't "pass" (make that certify folks!), I will scream.

I said this over the weekend too but anyone who hasn't gone through the process just doesn't understand. It isn't a pass/fail situation. It also doesn't mean that I am a good or not good teacher. It means one thing. I did not provide enough evidence. Period. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Truthfully, it doesn't really bother me. Sure, it's disappointing because you KILL yourself on it. You do. By the time you mail that box you think if you ever see it again, you are going to stab yourself in the eye! *wink* However, once mid-summer hit, I missed the process. The reflection. The growth. The need to keep pushing and pushing myself to go, go, go. Do this thing just a little better, put this much more into that assignment.

National Board changed the way I teach. No matter what, I am 100% a better teacher than I ever have been. I could go on about how my students and their parents all think so and tell me so...but it isn't about that either. I just do what I love. I try my best every day and strive to be better every day too. It's what I want my students to do, it's what I should practice as well.

The Results are In....

Today is the day that all CIWs have been waiting for. It is the day we find out if our blue boxes full of 9 months of blood, sweat and tears ended up providing us with a "Congratulations, You are a National Board Certified Teacher!" or not.

Unfortunately, when I logged into My Profile this morning at 6:30 a.m. (I couldn't sleep for a totally different reason), I did not see those fabulous words. I missed certifying by 6 points. (Remember that each entry is worth up to 4.25 points (an A+) and then is weighted by 16, 12 or 6.67 depending upon the entry/exercise.) What really stinks is, upon further investigation, I only need 0.375 of a point on one entry to certify and reach that magic number of 275. 

The closer we have gotten to the deadline, I have been telling myself I didn't make it. Not to be a downer and not to be a Negative Nancy but to prepare myself just in case. I had a really crappy spring when I was finishing my last two entries (the two I didn't reach the 2.75 on which is the minimum "pass" on each entry/exercise). When I checked my National Board files on my computer, I noted that the two I didn't pass were the last two I completed and I finished them the day I sent in my box. I sent my box in two weeks early because I was overwhelmed with my personal BS and needed to get National Board out of my hair. 

I took three weeks off (until Spring Break) and then busted my behind studying for the Assessment Center. Happily, I did really awesome there, only exercise 5 was below the benchmark (and that one stumped a lot of us for MONTHS as we practiced and practiced). 

I have been sick all day (not because of my results, it's just icky timing) and have slept through much of the day. I have thought about what to do in the small amount of time I have been awake and coherent. I AM going to retake Portfolio One and ONLY Portfolio One. I did horrible on Entry 3 but I feel so UNconfident in my ability to redo that one and bring my score back up. So I will do the other one. I only need that 0.375th of a point so if I put all of my energy into that one entry, I should be just fine. 

I know the process so much better, I know what to expect now. It won't be as time consuming, as difficult and/or as stressful because it's ONE entry rather than TEN like last year. Plus the drama is my life is relatively non-existent now since I parted ways with people who just don't deserve to say they know me. I will make it in Round Two, I have no doubt of that.

It is a journey after all. My plan of attack is to review Entry 2 (my highest score) and see what I did in there that I didn't do in Entry 1 and go from there. I am working with big kids again, where I feel SO MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE, and thus hopefully I can kick this entry in the behind this time around. 

So don't feel sad for me. I don't. Yeah, it stinks to work so hard and have to redo something but it is what it is. I will make it. I'm not the sort of person who just gives up. :) I have been a survivor my entire life and this is just a bump in my road. It's a tiny bump...it means nothing in the long run. I will be positive, I will persevere and a year from now I will open My Profile and see the words I want to see.

The End is (almost) here!

I got an email Friday afternoon letting me know that scores will be released on Saturday, November 17. We on the ecgen.org forums have speculated whether it would be that day (historically it is the Saturday before Thanksgiving). I am beyond nervous about it.

Some of my colleagues (and my mother), bless their hearts, say "Oh you passed FOR SURE". But if you haven't been through the process, you just don't know what its like. The way you have to write, the way you have to analyze, reanalyze and scrutinize everything is so nerve-wrecking. There is no sure-fire way to know that your  best effort met the rigorous standards of National Board.

Over the past few days, as I have been busy totally having a social life and having fun for a change, I have let myself think that perhaps I haven't certified yet. We had a great discussion on ecgen about that wording also--it isn't pass/fail, it is certified/not certified yet. When my mom told me to "have faith in myself" and I "surely passed", I felt bad about the possibility of NOT passing. I mentioned this on the forum and one of the ladies mentioned that pass/fail is so negative. Yes, it is!! So we all agreed to say certified or not certified yet.

I knew going into this process that I was in it for the long haul, three years if it takes me that long. I hope it doesn't because I'm not looking forward to the notion that I might have to videotape and do other things over again. Then again, I may be worried for nothing. Everyone I know who is in my shoes, who are waiting with baited breath for Saturday, gets it. We know it isn't so easy as to say "wow but you're a great teacher" or whatever. That doesn't matter. It matters how you presented your evidence that you are an accomplished teacher.

I know that I may well bite my nails down to the quick by Saturday and I may need to keep a barf bag handy when I log into My Profile Saturday and check to see where I stand (I may need that bag either way--I may vomit in despair or pure joy!). No matter what, however, I have promised myself that I am not going to be upset with myself if I didn't certify yet. I will take it on the chin, look at their advice and see what I need to do.

Part of me would love to be super confident and say "yeah, I got this" but it's just too difficult of a process to be so sure of yourself with. I can't wait to find out...yet I also don't want to know yet. A whole year of hard work could be coming to an amazing conclusion or back to a drawing board.

At least I have conferences to distract me this week!

Let the Countdown Begin!

Typically, in years past, scores for National Board are released right around Thanksgiving. Usually the week before. If that holds true this year, that means in just about a month, I will either have the best day of my life or the day that signifies I have some more growth to make. 

I was chatting with a colleague not to long ago and she said to me, "Oh you'll pass. You are SO smart." 

But some days, I do worry about what I'll do if I didn't make it. Was my writing good enough? Did I cover every single aspect of the prompts in the assessment center? Did I...? Did I....? Did I....?

It's so easy to second guess and question yourself. Most of the spring and summer, after taking my test, I put it out of my head. The relief in being done was tremendous. Most of this fall, it hasn't bothered me too much. Yes, I think about it now and again but I'm so busy trying to keep my head above water at school that I don't often have time to think about it. 

Someone on the ecgen.org forum (which I would TOTALLY JOIN if I were you and you're a new candidate in Early Childhood Generalist, Middle Childhood Generalist or Early/Middle Childhood Literacy--best $40 you'll ever spend!), said that when they were a CIW (Candidate in Waiting) they went into the new school year, before score release, and prepped to start all over, just in case they didn't make it. In other words, they did the permission slips, prepared to videotape and do all of these things over again. I thought that was kind of crazy. I mean, more power to her, but no thank you. I am not going to stress myself out over it until I KNOW I have to redo something. 

The confident side of me thinks there is just no way that I WON'T pass. I killed myself on those portfolios, analyzing, overanalyzing, reanalyzing. There is just no way that I didn't get a minimum 2.75 on each one. That's what I tell myself anyway. The assessment center exercises aren't worth as much (40% overall compared to 60% for the portfolios)...but I went to a ton of chats and really felt like I nailed those questions. I answered them just the way we practiced. I felt good. Confident.

The pessimistic side of me doesn't want to get that score release and see that I failed to make it this time. Because with as crazy as my school life is right now, I don't know HOW I could possibly do National Board again, even if it was just for an entry. I pray that if I didn't make it for some reason that the only things I need to redo would be AC exercises because they aren't classroom based and pretty much zero stress involved. 

The confident side wins most of the time fortunately. I have run so many scoring "scenarios" through based on feedback I got from readers of my portfolio and the chats I attended at ecgen.org that I will probably be shocked if I don't pass. I'm not a perfectionist in much but in stuff like this, I totally am. I would never submit something that didn't have my 150% best effort put into it. My name is out there, you know? 

The good news is, the way the process is scored, they add a 12 point uniform constant to every score. So if you DO receive a 2.75 minimum on everything (basically a B-), you will pass because your raw score would be 275 and the uniform constant will increase you to 287 points. The minimum passing is 275.

I think this is a good way to do it so that if you are someone like me...who has ZERO experience working with super young students (K-1 age), you have some leeway to do much better on another area to bump up your score. I know I only feel good about the Emergent Literacy AC exercise because I practiced with a kindergarten teacher for 3 months!! The other exercises were much more in my comfort zone so I'm not as worried about those. 

I'm sure that much of this will slip my mind over the next few weeks as we have more going on at school with conferences and the busy month of November. Once I get that coveted email telling me when scores will be available...my heart will likely lodge in my throat until I know I passed or need to reassess and decide my next step.

The Mid-Summer Waiting Game

When you spend an entire year focusing on something, it's weird when you no longer have it. I have felt this way on and off since walking out of the Assessment Center on May 14, having finished my National Board exams. For a little while, there was euphoria: whew, I'm finally done. Not long after, however, you sort of feel a sense of loss because this is something that overtook your life for such a long time (a school-year is a long time).

I find myself as we are approaching Back-to-School reflecting upon all of the things I learned last year. Even if I don't certify this year, I won't give up. I will step back into the ring and try again. It's kind of what I do. But in all seriousness, I am approaching ALL aspects of my curriculum planning differently. How can I truly maximize every moment I have with my students? How can I fit in just one more thing to help my students make progress?

Those are the thoughts floating through my head this August. It's this time of year I often get what I have dubbed "August insomnia" because I have so many ideas and things I want to do that I can't sleep. It hasn't happened yet but I'm sure it will. I have so many things I want to do for my classroom this year: not just for looks, but for productivity. I want to give my students the absolute BEST year they can have. Focus, determination and the growth I made going through National Board has invigorated me in ways I never thought would be possible for me. Teaching is my passion--it's who I am and what I do. 

But this is powerful. A year of hard work, scrutinizing, analyzing, freaking out and going back to the drawing board have me reflecting on what I've done in the past and what I will do in the future. It is a really awesome feeling to know that no matter if I see a "Congratulations" on my screen in November or not that I have grown. I have changed. I have made a difference for myself and for my future students simply by embarking upon the process.

That knowledge, reflection and power are priceless.

And waiting....

It is hard to believe it has only been six weeks since I took my NB test. So much has happened since that day (some good, a lot not good).

I kind of miss the National Board process. Maybe that makes me crazy. Or just a little odd. Or both!

I was talking to some folks on the ecgen site and I think I might try my hand at writing a book about the EMC Literacy certificate. There are "general" books out there and books geared for the EC-Gen certificate (and some are really good!), but I know I was hungry for something a bit more specific to my situation. When I asked around there, they all told me it was an amazing idea.

Maybe they are just crazy like me!!

Tentatively I would call it "The Art of Accomplished Teaching". I have totally been bitten by the writing bug since finishing my book and I think this would be a great project to work on, even if I didn't really make a lot of money with it.

Oh yeah...VICTORY!

Well. It's over. Done. Finito!

I got my life back as of 10:03 this morning. It took me just over 2 hours to take my test. I did not go the full 30 minutes for each exercise. I know me. I would overanalyze, think too much and mess up. So I went with my gut on each one, double checked my responses to make sure I had all of my criteria met and on to the next.

I thought I was going to pass out between exercise 2 and 3. I did not sleep well at all last night. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep and it was broken. I just couldn't relax. So I got up with a sore throat, a headache and hardly any sleep. Not exactly ideal conditions to take the biggest test of your life! But I powered on and I think I did okay. At the worst maybe a 2 on any of them but really I think I did alright. I'm so glad we practiced exercise 3 (Emergent Literacy) and exercise 5 (Visual Text) so much because I think I kicked some behind on those two. Here's hoping I'm right!! The AC chats were the very best thing I ever participated in, seriously. I would have been LOST without those.

You have to shut off EVERYTHING when you get there and are only allowed to have your ID and your locker key in the room. When I left, feeling tremendous relief and disbelief that it was finally over, I had two voicemails from school. One saying they needed me to come in because no one took the job. Um, not happening. The 2nd one said "oh we figured out what all of those letters mean and realize you can't come in, nevermind". I wouldn't have anyway! Not my issue that a sub cancelled last minute. And it's  not like you can just go "oh nevermind National Board, I'll put you off another day or week". Um, no.

SO glad to be done with this. I want my life back. It's been amazing, frustrating, invigorating, thought provoking and tiring all at once. I know that once school resumes for fall I will be much better off having done this -- because everything I learned will come with me. Everything I'm too tired to process right now will come back to me and I will be a better teacher because of it. But for now....it is rest. Rest and wait. Wait a loooooong time for score results. Honestly after today I'm sure I won't think about it much before October. I'm so ready to just have it behind me.

The End

Well, here we are.

In less than 12 hours now,  I will be at the Assessment Center, on the final leg of my National Board journey. From therein, it will be a waiting game. A big sigh of relief when it's over and putting it out of my mind so I can go back to a normal life: reading, writing, working on my books, getting my publishing house going, spending time with my hubby and kids, watching TV (which I rarely ever do) and not thinking about NB.

Come the fall when things are busy, it will continue to be pushed to the back of my mind. My frame of reference will be filled with starting the new school year, working out the kinks of the new system we're using for Reading Street and focusing on myself.

Then The Email will come. The email that announces that scores will be released soon. And anxiety will set in. Will my hard work have paid off? Will I become a National Board Certified Teacher or an Advanced Candidate?

I can prep no more. I either know it...or I don't. I'm not worried about whether or not I know it. I'm worried about remembering it when I'm sitting in that room, nervous that I will come off like a complete bonehead in my exercises. That some assessor somewhere will laugh at my entries and wonder who the heck I thought I was even attempting this.

Although when I did my very last practice chat on Thursday, the gal I've bonded with who has been with me every week for these chats said she thought I was one of the smartest people on the forum and would be crossing her fingers for me. That's super nice and super awesome. This is someone I don't even really know who thinks I am smart and will make it. I sure hope I do. I want this to pay off -- not in two or three tries, but in one. I want the pain, suffering and literal anguish I have been through this year -- not at the hands of NB but trying to push through the process and deal with it -- to pay off and be able to proclaim that I did, indeed, make it in one try. That I am worthy of the initials NBCT behind my name. 

Getting closer...

In one week, I will be freaking out. FREAKING.OUT.

Why? Because on Monday, May 14, I will be taking THE TEST. Not any ole test. The biggest test of my life. Really for five of the exercises, I feel confident. I have done well in our practice sessions. Whenever I have practiced on my own, I have always had extra time. That makes me feel better because everyone says those 30 minutes FLY in the Assessment Center. In all of my practices I have had at least 10 minutes when I've finished my responses to go back, make sure I haven't missed anything and make anything more clear if needed. I'm SO glad I've had the foresight to do those practices, and engage in all of the extra chats, because it sure has helped.

I am worried about Exercise 3 -- the Emergent Literacy one. I fear that I will choke when I'm in the AC. I have never taught K-1 (and never plan to). My certificate will span ages 3-12 bu I plan to stay in the late 6 year old and up ages (I had a few kiddos who were still 6 when school started this year). I will practice, practice, practice that one over the next week. 

Then it's test time...and freedom. No more weekends devoted to NB. No more scheduling my life around the AC chats we've been doing. No more worrying about how I will get everything done. Freedom to enjoy my last weeks of the school year and not have this hanging over me.

It's soooo close I can nearly taste it.

Assessment Center

After mulling through the thousands of emails I seem to get every day, I noticed that I had scheduled my assessment center on the day that happens to be Field Day. With any other group, I would have left it. With this one?  Nope. So I went to the site and looked to see what else is free....not willing to make it on a day when I would miss a prep period.

So Monday, May 14 it is. Kind of scary because it's coming up FAST. But...the last chat for the EMC Literacy group is May 13. Plus a few of us have been doing our own chats. The one I am most worried about is the emergent literacy since I have never taught K-1 and never plan to either. Fortunately one of my new pals in my certificate area IS a K-1 teacher and is steering me in the right direction on that one. So hopefully, I will be okay.

I'm not too worried about the change of day. It's a Monday rather than a Wednesday but I won't miss any specials, my kids aren't taking any tests, etc. If I really kick myself in the behind in the next couple of weeks, I will be okay. I really am not too worried. I have kicked some ass (if I do say so myself) in my practice work for the AC so I'm feeling MUCH better than I was at the onset of this part of the process.

In truth, I will be beyond happy to get that assessment over with and get on with the rest of my life. I have learned a TON in this process and I am so glad I have done it...but I also am looking forward to relaxing. Thinking about closing out the year, looking ahead to next year and NOT thinking about the test or practicing for the test. I will hang on until the end of May to help my fellow candidates but once May is over...I'm SO done until November when I get to panic about score release!

Support

I've made it no secret that when I make National Board certified status, I will be the only one in my district. Therefore I have no mentor or coaches or support groups.

I have my yahoo group and ecgen.org and that's it.

I am finding that I am good at thinking through the prompts and applying them to the stimulus. The issue will be when you only have 30 minutes to read and respond. The prompt doesn't change, just the stimulus, but that means you need to know 6 prompts like the back of your hand going in. No easy task.

I missed the first yahoo chat for exercise one but made it for exercise two. A fellow lit candidate wanted some practice with exercise 5 so we met tonight and it was just us but we got it done. Great thinking and we started sharing a brain after a bit. Good problem to have! We encouraged each other to back it up and find proof.

If we're honest I'm enough of a bossy pants that I kind of like leading the chat...pushing the thinking of myself and others. It's also helpful. Now the trick will be to be able to do all of the steps of the prompt in under 30 minutes!