Professional ePortfolio

Movement builds confidence.

I am Riley Ketchum, a physical education teacher committed to helping every student find success through movement, teamwork, and meaningful challenge.

Meet Riley View selected work

Welcome / About Me

Professional introduction

My path to education combines a lifelong love of sports and movement with more than seven years of leadership experience in restaurants as a chef and general manager.

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From leading teams to teaching students

I entered education because physical education was where I felt happiest and most connected growing up. Playing multiple sports helped me understand how movement can build confidence, belonging, and resilience.

Before becoming an educator, I worked my way from chef to restaurant general manager. That experience taught me to communicate clearly, mentor people with different strengths, stay calm under pressure, and create systems that help a team succeed. I now bring those same skills to the gym and playground.

As a Chico State credential candidate, I am developing into a reflective, inclusive PE teacher who values effort, integrity, empathy, and fair play. My goal is simple: create a safe environment where no student is left out.

Team leadershipInclusive instructionClear routinesGrowth mindsetRelationship building

Educator Identity

Philosophy of education

I believe quality physical education develops the whole person. Students should leave class with stronger movement skills and a deeper ability to communicate, persevere, cooperate, and make healthy choices.

Meet students where they are

Learning begins at each student’s current skill level. I provide choices, modifications, and multiple entry points so challenge remains meaningful and achievable.

Value effort over outcome

I praise practice, courage, and improvement. Skill matters, but the willingness to try, adjust, and keep going is what creates lifelong learners.

Teach through relationships

Students learn best when they feel known and respected. Consistent routines, calm redirection, and genuine encouragement create trust.

Build social learning

Games are opportunities to practice integrity, empathy, communication, fair play, and responsible decision-making.

Use challenge by choice

Students deserve appropriate challenge without embarrassment or exclusion. Choice helps students take healthy risks and build agency.

Keep movement joyful

I want students to discover activities they enjoy so physical activity can remain part of their lives beyond school.

“Every student deserves a place to move, contribute, improve, and belong.”

Instructional Design & Assessment

Purposeful learning in motion

I plan backward from clear, measurable learning goals. Instruction combines demonstration, concise cues, active practice, student communication, observation, feedback, and reflection.

Plan

Clear targets

Translate standards into student-friendly goals that identify the movement skill, conditions, and evidence of success.

Teach

Visible cues

Model technique, use brief academic language, and provide visual demonstrations before students practice.

Monitor

Active assessment

Circulate, observe, question, and use checklists or peer feedback to identify progress during movement.

Respond

Immediate adjustment

Reteach, modify equipment, regroup students, or extend the challenge based on evidence collected in class.

Planning example

Throwing and catching with academic language

Students demonstrate effective throwing and catching technique while using content-specific vocabulary to explain what makes a performance successful. An exit ticket asks students to identify a technique cue, connect it to their performance, and name a next step.

Measurable content and language goals
Teacher modeling and visual cues
Choice of distance, equipment, and challenge
Peer communication using sentence frames
Observation checklist and exit reflection

Reflective Practice

Notice. Adjust. Grow.

Reflection is how I turn experience into stronger teaching. I examine student evidence, my management decisions, and the accessibility of each activity before deciding what comes next.

A shift in behavior management

I have grown by becoming less reactive. Instead of immediately escalating a correction, I use proximity, wait time, clear expectations, and calm redirection. These strategies protect student dignity and help the class return to learning more quickly.

ObserveInterpretAdjustReassess

Learning from student performance

During a frisbee unit, most students made strong gains in backhand throwing and catching, while the more advanced forehand throw remained difficult for several students. That evidence showed me the need for slower progressions, additional demonstrations, and more differentiated practice.

EvidenceFeedbackNew progression

Classroom Experience / Fieldwork

Learning alongside students

My fieldwork has helped me connect university coursework to real classrooms, diverse learners, collaborative planning, safety, and the daily work of building an effective PE program.

STUDENT TEACHING

Bend Elementary School

Designed and taught standards-aligned physical education in a small rural school. Experience includes frisbee skills, tag games, modified soccer, six-base kickball, volleyball, pickleball, and cooperative activities.

COLLABORATIVE FIELDWORK

Mateer Elementary

Worked weekly with experienced Red Bluff elementary PE teachers, observing program organization, class management, equipment systems, and developmentally appropriate instruction.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Adapted Physical Education

Shadowed an Adapted PE teacher and strengthened my understanding of access, individual support, equipment modification, and meaningful participation.

Equity & Inclusion

Participation with dignity

Equity in PE means more than inviting every student into the same activity. It requires removing barriers, valuing different strengths, and designing participation so every student can experience authentic success.

Universal design

I vary equipment, space, pacing, grouping, demonstrations, and response options so students have multiple ways to access and show learning.

Language development

I pair movement demonstrations with concise vocabulary, gestures, visuals, partner talk, repetition, and sentence frames for multilingual learners.

Justice-centered practice

I question traditions that reward only the most experienced athletes and intentionally create leadership, voice, and success for students too often pushed to the margins.

Inclusive community

I challenge stereotypes, teach empathy and fair play, advocate for students with disabilities, and reinforce that ability is not a condition of belonging.

Showcase / Artifacts of Excellence

Selected professional work

Each artifact will pair the finished product with a short explanation of the context, learning goal, evidence of student learning, and what I would revise next.

01 / CalTPA

Instructional Cycle 1

Planning evidence focused on student assets, measurable content and language goals, assessment, and responsive instruction in physical education.

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02 / Lesson

Six-Base Kickball

A third-grade Chico State lesson plan featuring clear routines, team strategy, safe movement, assessment, accommodations, and student-friendly goals.

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03 / Unit

Volleyball Progression

A standards-aligned unit moving from individual technique to communication, rotation, modified gameplay, sportsmanship, and reflection.

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04 / Data

Assessment & Data

Visual analysis of student fitness or skill data used to identify trends, plan instruction, and communicate growth responsibly.

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05 / Equity

English Learner Case Study

Observation, analysis, and recommendations demonstrating asset-based planning, language support, and attention to student context.

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06 / Media

Teaching in Action

A future space for a short captioned video, photo series, or narrated lesson walkthrough showing instruction and student engagement.

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Before sharing publicly: Replace placeholders with embedded, accessible artifacts; remove student names and identifying information; obtain required permissions for any photos or videos; and add descriptive alt text and captions.