Preparing a Teaching Portfolio: A Comprehensive Guide for Faculty, Slides of Investment Management and Portfolio Theory

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Preparing a

Teaching Portfolio

by

Fran Mues and Mary Deane Sorcinelli

The Center for Teaching

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Spring 2000

Preface Over the past decade, the Center for Teaching (CFT) and the Faculty Senate Council on Teaching, Learning and Instructional Technology have collaborated on several initiatives to assist faculty in assessing and enhancing teaching. The Council has advised in the development of an updated student and course evaluation system, the Student Response to Instruction (SRTI). And in an effort to supplement student ratings with a richer and more substantive kind of information about teaching, they have encouraged faculty members and departments to consider compiling teaching portfolios. In 1993, the CFT and the Council prepared an introductory handbook for campus use: the (^) Teaching Portfolio Handbook. At that time, only a handful of institutions across the United States were experimenting with teaching portfolios. On our campus, individual faculty mostly used the Teaching Portfolio Handbook as a general reference when documenting their teaching accomplishments for teaching awards, mini-tenure, and tenure and promotion review. Over the past decade, however, there has been a growing body of knowledge about how to create and apply teaching portfolios. It is estimated that as many as 1,000 college and universities are now using and experimenting with portfolios (Seldin, 1997). On our own campus, several colleges and departments have sponsored workshops on the teaching portfolio, one school is piloting a portfolio project, the CFT offers assistance in portfolio development to graduate students through its Teaching Documentation Program, and individual faculty and teaching assistants increasingly consult with the CFT on portfolio development. In addition, our Provost, Cora B. Marrett, has encouraged a fuller and more convincing assessment of teaching accomplishments for personnel decision making. In her 1998 Promotion and Tenure Recommendations, she placed a renewed emphasis on the “personal statement.” In a personal statement, the candidate for tenure and/or promotion describes his or her performance and future plans in the areas of research,

Mary Deane Sorcinelli The Center for Teaching

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teaching. Although such student reviews contribute important information about teaching performance, they often reflect off-the-cuff feelings expressed in just a few moments at one of the final classes of a semester. The variety of sources of feedback in a portfolio provides a more comprehensive view of how a teacher is handling the diverse responsibilities of teaching. Thus they reflect more of teaching’s intellectual substance and complexity.

• They make teaching more visible through their demonstration of a variety of teaching-related activities.
• They place the initiative for reflecting on and evaluating teaching in the hands of faculty. It is the teacher who explains and documents his or her teaching performance by selecting what goes into the portfolio.
• They give the individual an opportunity to think about his or her own teaching — to change priorities or teaching strategies as needed, and to reflect about future teaching goals. Putting together a teaching portfolio in itself often enhances one’s teaching performance.
• They offer opportunities for faculty to work collaboratively. Teachers often work with other colleagues or mentors in developing portfolios, thereby opening the door to greater sharing among faculty of their views and approaches to teaching.
• As teaching becomes more visible and ideas about it are shared, teaching becomes a more valued subject of intellectual and scholarly discussion throughout the institution.

How Does One Develop a Teaching Portfolio?

Although how one develops a teaching portfolio is as unique as each portfolio itself, we have selected some very practical strategies that most faculty here at UMass can apply or adapt to their individual needs.

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Getting Started

Before you begin to put together a teaching portfolio, it is helpful to develop and gather material that you might include in it. We say “might,” because at this preliminary stage you will likely be collecting more than you can include in a single portfolio.

• Establish a filing system specifically for material related to your teaching development efforts. Treat these files as separate from your normal course records. This means you will need to duplicate a set of material specifically for your teaching development files. Having double copies is a minor nuisance in the short run; but in the long run having a “portfolio set” cuts down on pillaging other files, keeps portfolio materials easily accessible when needed, and provides a clearer overall perspective of your teaching efforts and growth.
• Sketch out your reflections on your teaching (your beliefs, values, strategies) and how it relates to student learning in your field. These reflections will likely become part of your teaching philosophy statement.
• Talk to other faculty members you admire about their approach to teaching. Often such a dialogue can stimulate your reflective process and help you better articulate your priorities, values, and goals. (It can do the same for them as well.)
• Collect material on your teaching-related activities (see Appendix A for suggestions). Note: Even here it helps to be somewhat selective, to choose items that you might consider for your teaching portfolio.
• Write your goals for teaching development. Then seek out different opportunities that might support these goals, such as attending a discipline-based pedagogy seminar or workshop on campus, participating in a program offered by the Center for Teaching, or attending an off-campus conference related to teaching in your field.

Preparing Your Portfolio

Once you have gathered the supporting documents you need, it generally takes a total of 12 to 15 hours to prepare your portfolio (Seldin, 1997, p 19). When you begin to assemble it, you have many choices of material to include. Now is the time to be

Preparing a Teaching Portfolio 5

say or include in your portfolio, especially if your beliefs differ? What kinds of evidence of teaching effectiveness will your reviewers expect to be included in your portfolio? About how much material would they like you to include? As we have mentioned before, teaching portfolios are a highly individual product, whose content and organization vary from one institution, department, and faculty member to another. Especially if you have not developed a portfolio before, consider looking at samples, such as those in Appendices B and C or in Seldin’s (^) Teaching Portfolio (1997). Or some colleagues might share their portfolios with you. Even though yours will be different from others, the samples can help you visualize what a teaching portfolio might contain and how it might be organized, depending on its purpose, audience, and context. The following generic guidelines include components typical of most portfolios, although these components might be combined or separated in different ways. Teaching experience and responsibilities. This section provides a context for the main points you make about your teaching. Here you summarize courses you are teaching or have taught in the recent past, including number of credit hours, whether the course was required or elective, number of students, and whether they were graduate or undergraduate (see sample in Appendix D). Teaching activities outside the classroom, such as advising graduate or undergraduate students, supervising students engaged in independent studies, and otherwise mentoring students, are also important to include. (Also see Appendix A, section titled Roles, Responsibilities, and Goals.) Teaching philosophy and goals. Despite its typical brevity (about 1-2 pages long), this statement is the foundation on which the portfolio is built. Your aim here is to answer in some way one main question: Why do you do what you do as a teacher? Reflections on this question generally include four components, which may be discussed separately or be intertwined in some way (see samples in Appendices E and F):

• Your beliefs about how student learning in your field occurs.
• Given those reflections, your beliefs about how you as a teacher can best help students learn.

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• How you put into practice your beliefs about effective teaching and learning. (If you discuss your teaching methods in a separate section, such as the one below, you might simply refer to that section in your philosophy statement.)
• Your goals for students. Whether you are developing the portfolio for yourself or for evaluation by others, reflecting on these issues serves as a good basis for self-assessment and potential growth as a teacher. How you write about these issues again depends largely on your audience. Because this section of your portfolio is a personal statement, writing in first-person, narrative form is appropriate in most circumstances. Writing in broadly understood terms rather than in highly technical language is usually best. Even when writing for yourself, using common terms can help you better demonstrate your knowledge to yourself. If your audience is limited to others in your department who will be evaluating you, use of technical language might indicate your knowledge of the discipline. But even readers in one’s own department may prefer minimal use of technical terms. Teaching methods and strategies. As you describe how you teach, keep in mind what you have said in your teaching philosophy statement. It may help the reader if you explicitly state some connection (perhaps in a simple phrase) between what you are describing in this section and how it relates to your teaching philosophy statement. In the same or a separate section, also reflect on the effectiveness of your teaching. Select supporting materials that illustrate your teaching approach (i.e., that show you do what you are describing) and that provide evidence of your teaching effectiveness. You will likely place this supporting documentation, which includes information from yourself and from others (such as colleagues, supervisors, and students), in one or more appendices. Activities undertaken to improve teaching. Your discussions and evidence from preceding sections may lead you to consider what worked, what did not, why, and how to change what needs changing to improve your effectiveness as a teacher. The material you have gathered so far might also lead you to consider what is missing: What have you not done that you think would be worthwhile trying? Although what you emphasize is likely to vary according to the purposes of your portfolio, in this section you

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Keeping Your Portfolio Up to Date

Periodically revising your portfolio is a good way to continue reflecting on your teaching, as well as to keep material readily available for a periodic multiyear review (PMYR), a teaching award, or other evaluative purposes. The end of each semester or school year is a good time to go through your teaching development files, discard outdated material, and add current data. Time and additional experience will likely offer you a slightly different perspective on your initial portfolio. Your priorities may have changed, or perhaps you would now articulate them differently. After you have achieved some of the goals you set forth in your original portfolio, you can note how you achieved them and reflect on how they have improved your students’ learning and your teaching.

Assembling an Electronic Portfolio

Assembling an electronic portfolio can range from putting your portfolio on a computer disk or CD-ROM to developing a website on the Internet. If you and the readers of your portfolio have access to the appropriate equipment and know how to use it, you might consider the advantages of preparing an electronic portfolio. For example, you can include more kinds of information, such as animated graphics, in-class presentations that you developed on presentation software, or videoclips from your classes. You can also include information that might make a traditional hard-copy portfolio too bulky, such as a lengthy appendix or links to an entire course that you have posted on the Internet. In general, you can include more information on an electronic portfolio than is typical of a paper portfolio. If you and your readers prefer an electronic portfolio, some cautions are still in order. For example, beware of including too much information. Although your readers can be free to select what they choose to read or skim, too many choices may still be overwhelming. Keep focused on the objectives of the portfolio rather than on the “bells and whistles” of the technology. Finally, be sure that all your readers have access and know how to use the hardware and software they will need for reviewing your portfolio material (Lieberman & Rueter, 1997, pp 46-48).

How Will My Portfolio Be Evaluated?

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You may be wondering how your portfolio is likely to be evaluated if it will be used as part of a personnel decision-making process. In general, experts seem to agree that the content of a teaching portfolio and the evaluative criteria used to judge it should be related to the goals of the teacher’s department and to the mission of the institution in which he or she works. Explicit evaluative criteria should be developed and agreed upon before portfolios are reviewed. And the decision of a review committee should be based on their general agreement about the quality of the portfolio (quality depending on the criteria that have been established). It seems reasonable, then, for you to have information from your review committee about what items must be included in your portfolio, an expected range of number of pages, and the criteria on which the portfolio will be judged. Finally, authorities on teaching portfolios typically note that evaluators should also judge a portfolio according to its:

• Inclusion of evidence that backs up the claims a teacher makes — evidence of teaching accomplishments, of student learning, and of efforts to improve teaching.
• Consistency between the professor’s teaching philosophy and accompanying evidence of teaching strategies, effectiveness, and efforts to improve. If you would like additional information on evaluating portfolios, see Murray’s Successful Faculty Development and Evaluation, pp 37-48, and Seldin’s Successful Use of Teaching Portfolios, pp 71-86.

Conclusion

The Center for Teaching has received positive feedback from UMass faculty on the successful use of teaching portfolios, both for teaching improvement and for evaluation. For example, Peter Elbow, Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program, reports: “I try to squirrel away things that can help me think about my teaching — even when I don’t have enough time to think. Not just what portfolio people call ‘artifacts’ — syllabi, assignments, handouts, student papers, plans — but also stray notes I write to myself after class (and sometimes in class while people are writing). I have a computer

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Appendix A: Items That Might Be Included in a Teaching Portfolio

The following items, loosely organized into several categories, reflect teaching activities inside and outside the classroom. Although no portfolio would ever include all of these items, some are relatively common to all portfolios, and others can be selected to meet your particular needs. (The selections were compiled from several sources: Anderson, 1993, pp 48-49, 83-85; Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, 1993; Denham et al., 1996, p 23). Roles, Responsibilities, and Goals

• Brief biographical sketch related to what has shaped your teaching
• Statement of teaching roles and responsibilities
• Reflective essay describing teaching philosophy, goals, and methods
• List of courses taught, with enrollments and comment as to if new, required or elective, team-taught, etc
• Roles and activities related to advising: Description of advising responsibilities, goals, and approaches Number of undergraduate and graduate advisees Advising materials developed for students Assistance with undergraduate program Assistance with planning for employment or graduate school Referral to other university services Serving on graduate examination and thesis or dissertation committees

Representative Course Materials

• Syllabi
• Course descriptions with details of content, objectives, methods, and procedures for evaluating student learning
• List of texts and outside readings; rationales for selecting texts/readings
• Assignments
• Exams and quizzes, graded and ungraded
• Handouts, problem sets, lecture outlines
• Descriptions and examples of visual materials used
• Descriptions of use of computers or other technology in teaching Assessment and Extent of Student Learning
• Student scores on standardized or other tests, before and after instruction
• Samples of student work, such as papers, essays, lab books, workbooks, publications, presentations, or other creative work

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• Examples of graded exams from the best to the poorest students, with explanations of why the exams were so graded
• Your written feedback on student work (e.g., feedback on successive drafts of student writing)
• Information from yourself, colleagues, or others (e.g., students, parents) addressing preparation of students for advanced work
• Information from yourself, colleagues, or others (e.g., students, parents) addressing effect on students’ career choices and employment

Descriptions and Evaluations of Teaching

• Summarized student evaluations of your teaching, including response rate, students’ written comments, and overall ratings
• Results of interviews with students after they have completed a course
• Letters from students and alumni
• Videotape of you teaching a class
• Statements from colleagues about your: Mastery and selection of course content Suitability of course objectives, both in terms of student and departmental needs Suitability of course materials for achieving course objectives Suitability of specific teaching and assessment methods for achieving course objectives Commitment to teaching as evidenced by expressed concern for student learning Commitment to and support of departmental instructional efforts Willingness to work with others on instructional issues Ability to teach concepts (such as writing or critical thinking) in a way that allows students to use them in other courses
• Letter from head or chair describing your teaching performance

Course and Curriculum Development

• Designing new courses or development of sequence of courses
• Designing interdisciplinary or collaborative courses or teaching projects
• Administering a multisection course
• Working on curriculum revision or development
• Obtaining funds or equipment for teaching labs or programs

Activities to Improve Your and Others’ Instruction

• Having colleagues observe your classes
• Serving as a team teacher or guest teacher
• Participating in seminars or professional meetings on teaching
• Conducting classroom research projects