My Experience with National Board Certification

During the 2017-2018 school year, I submitted my work to the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS, or NB for extra short) for consideration. A few weeks ago I found out that I successfully achieved NB certification! I am so thrilled and excited! When I was working through the NB process I found that it was very difficult to find other NB candidates or NB certified teachers to connect with. My school district doesn't have any sort of "support group" for candidates, although I hear that many do, and I couldn't find a lot of information online. So, while there is so much that I can't share due to the confidentiality of the NBPTS, I wanted to share a little bit about how I stayed motivated, sane, and organized while completing my National Boards in one school year.

Choosing NB Certification

There were two big reasons that I decided to work towards NB certification. First, I was looking for a way that I could grow and advance my practice. I never want to become stagnant in my career, and in working on NB, I was able to reflect on my practice and analyze the choices I'm making in my classroom. Someday I would like to earn a master's degree, but the state of North Carolina has eliminated the pay increase that used to make graduate school financially reasonable. NB certification also comes with financial incentives in many states, and I'll be honest, that was the other big factor in deciding to work on NB.

When deciding between the certificate options, I settled on Literacy: Reading-Language Arts for Early and Middle Childhood (ages 3-12) -- literacy is the foundation for all learning, after all!

There are four parts, or "components," in the NB process: a multiple-choice and written response assessment (component 1) and three written portfolio pieces (components 2-4). Many candidates choose to split these across multiple years (I believe the NBPTS gives you up to 3 years to complete the process), but I decided to attempt all four components at once. Candidates are allowed to retake any components, so I figured that if any of my components did not score high enough for me to certify, I could retry only the missed components this year and at least be able to narrow my focus (fortunately, that wasn't necessary in my case). NB requires a lot of time and work, so completing all four components in the same year certainly isn't the right choice for everyone. I actually tracked my time put into NB and I put in 214 hours of work! WOW! Fortunately I was able to complete all four components and certify, so it seems it was the right choice for me.

Staying Organized to Stay Sane

As I mentioned above, NB is a lot of work. The first thing I did after registering was read through every single instruction for all four components and start a checklist for myself. Facing this huge mountain of work, I needed a timeline to get started. I decided on a deadline for myself by looking at the portfolio submission deadline and leaving a cushion for final revisions and edits, and then worked backwards through each step of each component to set goal dates. I thought this was a great way to break all of the instructions down into the necessary tasks, and while I didn't stick to every date in my timeline, it helped me get on track.

I decided to schedule component 1 (the assessment) as late as possible; I was actually able to pick a date about a month after the portfolio submission window closed, which meant I didn't have to worry about preparing for the assessment until all of the other components were finished and submitted. My original goal was to do the bulk of the writing for each component of the portfolio sequentially (first C2, then C3, then C4). I ended up finishing component 2 and then working on components 3 and 4 almost simultaneously, alternating based on my mood and which I felt more engaged with at the time.

As a way of holding myself accountable, I actually recorded my total word count at the end of every work session. This is so nerdy but I thought it was so interesting to watch my progress. It really helped me stay motivated. I think it's fun to look at the big jumps and dips -- look at how much work I got done on component 4 during spring break!

To stay on top of things, I needed to be able to maximize my time by working here, there, and everywhere. I tried working in Google Docs at first so that I could access my work from school and home, but I found that Google Docs formatted my text differently enough from Microsoft Word that I was losing valuable page real estate (NB has strict page length requirements). I ended up working in Word but saving my files in a Dropbox folder so that I could work from anywhere. For the several months that I was working on NB, three things went everywhere I did: my computer, my NB binder, and the expanding file folder that I used to store all of my student work and other evidence.

I printed off every single page of instructions and requirements from the NB website and stored them in my trusty binder, organized by tabs for each component. I had my binder open to these instructions every single time I worked on NB and referred to them constantly. There are many, many instructions for each component and lots of questions that the NBPTS want their candidates to address. I found it very helpful to be able to take lots of notes and highlight things that stood out to me so that I wouldn't miss anything.

I also printed out the NBPTS's standards, which are absolutely essential to meeting the requirements for certification, because in the NB process candidates are evaluated based on their ability to demonstrate these standards. I have always found it helpful when learning and studying something to rewrite it in my own words (this was my favorite strategy in college), so in the beginning, I actually went through the standards and created a bulleted list of what each standard meant, at least as far as I understood it. The process of doing this helped me break down the standards, and the result was a quick reference list I could use, although I still referred back to the official standards often.

The last tool that was really helpful for me was an expandable file folder. Throughout the whole process, I printed several drafts of my writing to revise and edit, and I wanted to be able to save all of the drafts in case I needed to reference any of them. I collected tons of student work and other artifacts that I used in the different components, and I also needed to keep track of which students had permission to be included in my videos. This adds up to a huge stack of papers! I was able to sort them all in this file folder and carry them around in my backpack so they were there whenever I needed them.

Filming In My Classroom

I'll be completely honest with you...a major source of stress for me at the beginning of the NB process was the idea of recording the two videos I needed for component 3. If you are a NB candidate preparing to film in your classroom, I highly recommend that you film early and film often. I wanted the video that I submitted to the NBPTS to show an authentic picture of my students and my class, and I found that it took several days of practice before my students felt comfortable and acted naturally with the camera in our classroom. I spoke with my students very openly about why I was filming our lessons. I told my third graders that they should just be themselves, and I was working on "a very big project that would help me level up as a teacher." Most of them really enjoyed the idea that they were helping me with my project by acting naturally when I was filming the class.

Looking back, the most useful thing I did was collect way more video than I would ever need. This enabled me to not worry too much about what was happening during every minute of every lesson I was filming because I knew that I would have backup videos. Not worrying about getting everything just right had a huge impact and, like practicing with the camera helped my students, it helped me relax enough to show my authentic instruction.

Lots of NB candidates seem to ask someone to come in to do the actual filming in their classroom, but this would have really stressed me out because A) I would have had an extra audience member in the room and B) I would not have been able to film a million lessons if another person had to come in to help every time. Instead I used an iPad mounted on our school's Swivl robot, which can sit on a desk or be mounted on a tripod and rotates to follow a "marker" I wore on a lanyard around my neck. The marker has a built-in microphone so even if I was far away from the camera, the audio in the final video was clear. My students were very interested in the Swivl -- they even named it "Mr. Swivls" and we gave him some googly eyes. I like to think this was another thing that made them feel more comfortable having this camera robot in our space!

Overall the NB process was a lot of work and took a lot of time, but by staying organized and using the resources I mentioned above, for me it was manageable...even completing all four components at once! I am by no means an expert on the NB process, and while the things mentioned in this post are strategies that helped to streamline the process for me, it was still a long and difficult process. If you are a NB candidate, or considering becoming one, I hope the information in this post can help you the way that it helped me.

If you have questions or strategies that you want to share, leave a comment below!

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