Thank you for visiting Daniel A. Bell's professional portfolio for teaching. Please use the links above to discover my professional work and accomplishments as a graduate student at Trinity University and as a full-time teacher of special education at Chelsea School.

At Trinity University, which is accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), I completed my Masters of Arts in Teaching for Special Education degree. While pursuing this degree, I underwent extensive training in the field of special education, which my portfolio exemplifies. I have accomplished a full array of intensive courses that have given me real world, hands-on classroom experience in the field of special education.

Currently, I am a Middle School Special Education Teacher at the Kihei Charter School in Maui, HI. Previously, I was the Media Productions Teacher at the Chelsea School, a self-contained, non-public middle and high school for students with language-based learning disabilities in Silver Spring, MD. In 2008, I was awarded with Chelsea’s “Rookie of the Year” award for my dedication to the school and how I took a near-faltering media program and breathed life into it once again, while allowing the program to grow and evolve. At Chelsea, I had been a part of curriculum development and have garnered extensive experience adapting and accommodating different and diverse learning styles while adhering to the goals and objectives of students’ IEPs.

Before I entered the field of teaching, I had completed my Bachelors of Fine Arts in Writing for Film and Television with a minor in Narrative Video Production at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I graduated with honors, was the College of Media and Communication’s Valedictorian, and was awarded the Ron Sterling Staff Award for Excellence. Even though I was planning on moving to Hollywood to become a screenwriter while in undergrad, the underlying foundation of becoming a teacher, especially a teacher of special education, had always been a part of my life. During the summers I volunteered at a camp for mentally disabled adults and I took a graduate-level education class that required volunteer time at an early intervention program. My mother, grandfather, and grandmother were all teachers as well. Also, even though I did not initially consider becoming a teacher after college because I did not believe that the technical skills I developed would be conducive to education, I was nevertheless able to utilize these skills in my professional career. I was lucky to obtain the position at Chelsea School teaching video and music production, and I am Chelsea’s webmaster, which allows me to explore my web design and graphic design skills as well.

I became a teacher because, even though I had previously had other career goals, I realized as I was becoming numb at a dead-end office job, that there was nothing else I wanted to do with my life. It is not simply a career path for me; it is something I feel compelled to do. I adore working with others and I feel that being a guide, a mentor, a teacher is what I was meant to do.
 
My professional portfolio is organized into artifacts with rationales that represent my mastery of each of the CEC standards. You will also find APA formatted papers that discuss the philosophical, theoretical, and practical positions that I believe in as a special education teacher. Lastly, you will find my resume, a letter of recommendation from my previous supervisor at Chelsea School, and different ways to contact me.

Please note that the majority of my documents are presented in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader, please download it here. Also, my eportfolio is best viewed using the Mozilla Firefox browser, which can be downloaded for free here.