Guide to Improved Performanceand Promotion/Tenure Decisions

What is the Purpose of a Teaching Portfolio?

There are several reasons why a teacher would need to design a portfolio. The most common are for hiring decisions, promotion and tenure, and sometimes for teaching awards. Typically one submits only a cover letter and CV when first applying for a job. Once a campus interview has been offered, it is a good idea to have a portfolio ready to offer as a presentation of your teaching effectiveness. However, there is great variability in this process. For example, some employers might request that you submit a Statement of Teaching Philosophy with your CV, or a summary of student evaluations. Thus, it is a good idea to have a comprehensive, ongoing, and changing teaching portfolio that you can excerpt from as appropriate.

What should be included?

Teaching portfolios have as much variability as individual teachers. Peter Seldin, who has written extensively on teaching portfolios, suggests that the materials should come evenly from three different areas: 1) information from self, such as a statement of teaching philosophy and reflections; 2) information from others, such as student, faculty, or peer evaluations; and 3) products, such as course materials.

Within these categories, some aspects of a teaching portfolio that may be included are:

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  Statement of teaching philosophy. Most teaching portfolios include this brief (1-2 page) explication on your philosophy about teaching near the beginning.
  
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  Student evaluation summaries. Some documentation of student evaluations should always be included. The way that you present this data, however, can take many forms. Some possibilities are:
  
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    A table summarizing numerical end of semester evaluations for all classes taught
    
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    Sample mid-term and end-of-semester comments from a recent class, with a reflection on how you used feedback to improve your teaching
    
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    Copies of official university evaluation summaries
    
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    Selected comments from students (from qualitative portion of evaluations), organized by course, or theme (about "leading discussions," "being available to students," etc.)
    

The exercise: Presenting and Reflecting on Student Evaluations offers suggestions for presenting this data and a writing exercise to begin writing a reflection on them.