Teaching Portfolios

Teaching Portfolios

A teaching portfolio is a brief and comprehensive factual description of teaching activities and accomplishments that highlights what is unique or effective about an individual's approach to teaching. Currently, teaching portfolios are being used at colleges and universities across the nation for both hiring and promotion and tenure.

TEP can assist in the design and development of a teaching portfolio. Portfolios may contain samples of syllabi, assignments, exams, and student work. You may include lesson plans and course development materials accompanied by commentary that reveal not only what was done, but why--the thinking behind the teaching. A portfolio might also document your professional development activities, student evaluations, peer and/or departmental observations and statements regarding your teaching and grading philosophies.

This page is summarized in a slideshow developing an Online Teaching Portfolio which provides an overview of the teaching portfolio and outlines a step-by-step process for developing a teaching portfolio.

Contents of this page:

 

Whats and Whys of Teaching Portfolios

What is a teaching portfolio? 

A teaching portfolio is a concise, yet comprehensive, factual description (with evidence) of your teaching activities and accomplishments. It is a tool that highlights your teaching for hiring, promotion, and tenure review.

Why have a teaching portfolio?

Creating and updating a teaching portfolio is an opportunity to reflect on your teaching and to document changes in your teaching. It's use as a reflection tool aligns well with self-presentation as part of UO's teaching evaluation framework.

What makes a teaching portfolio?

A teaching portfolio has two key features:

  1. Evidence, including records of your courses and responsibilities plus sample materials such as syllabi, assignments, etc.
  2. Reflective Commentary giving context and meaning to the evidence you've given.

The purpose of a teaching portfolio is not simply to outline what one teaches but to explain how one teaches and why one teaches that way. Consider these four key questions when drafting your portfolio:

  • What do you teach?
  • Why do you teach?
  • How do you teach?
  • Why do you teach the way that you do?

What about an online portfolio?

Great idea! An online portfolio opens up many possibilities for design, including multimedia like images or even video, and linking to other resources you've developed. If building an online portfolio work to make sure your portfolio is easy to use and streamline the content that you present as much as you can. Give clear pointers to different sections of your portfolio and make it easy to find and examine both your evidence and commentary.

 

Sample Portfolio Outlines

There is no established standard for what a portfolio contains. Each institution (and departments within institutions) must decide what teaching "artifacts" and evidence are most important to include. For those of you who want to compile a teaching portfolio for a job search, we recommend contacting the faculty development center at the institution to which you are applying and asking for portfolio guidelines. For portfolios intended to be used mostly internal to the University of Oregon, we recommend organizing it around the University of Oregon's Teaching Evaluation Standards. You can use a broader organization format, but you should ensure these standards should be easily identifiable for a reader.

These four portfolio outlines list the topics detailed in each sample. They are to suggest the types of material and ideas to include in a teaching portfolio. In each, reflective items are given their own topic and evidence is listed in the appendices. All four examples come from Seldin (1997).

A Sample Portfolio for Political Science A Sample Portfolio for Biology 
  1. Teaching Philosophy
  2. Teaching Responsibilities
  3. Advising / Supervision Responsibilities
  4. Teaching Methods
  5. Syllabi and Course Materials
  6. Student Evaluations
  7. Administrative and Peer Review
  8. Related Activities
    • For Students
    • For the University
    • For the Community
  9. Professional Improvement Activities
  10. Goals
  11. Appendices
    • Appendix A: List of Courses Taught
    • Appendix B: Samples of Student Work
    • Appendix C: Course Syllabi and Materials
    • Appendix D: Student Learning Aids
    • Appendix E: Student, Admin., & Peer Evaluations
    • Appendix F: Student-Related Activities
    • Appendix G: University-Related Activities
    • Appendix H: Community-Related Activities
    • Appendix I: Professional Improvement Activities
  1. Teaching Responsibilities
  2. Teaching Philosophy
  3. General Classroom Strategies
  4. Course Syllabi
  5. Student Research
  6. Additional Teaching Activities
  7. Teaching Assessment
  8. Teaching Improvement
  9. Future Teaching Goals
  10. Appendices
    • Appendix A: Sample Lecture Outline
    • Appendix B: Course Syllabi
    • Appendix C: “Way Cool” Biology Databases
    • Appendix D: Biology Instructor’s Grading Criteria
    • Appendix E: Samples of Student Papers
    • Appendix F: Science in Action Day Handouts
    • Appendix G: Letters from Local High Schools
    • Appendix H: Anecdotal Student Comments
    • Appendix I: Interactive Genetics Database Grant
    • Appendix J: Anecdotal Student Evaluation Form
A Sample Portfolio for English A Sample Portfolio for Music 
  1. Teaching Responsibilities
  2. Teaching and Learning Philosophy
  3. Teaching Methods and Strategies
  4. Connecting Learning to Students’ Lives
  5. Developing Critical Thinking Habits
  6. Motivating Students to Improve
  7. Integrating Computers in the Classroom
  8. Evaluating My Teaching
  9. Improving My Teaching
  10. The Teaching Cell
  11. Sharing Teaching Ideas With Others
  12. Staying Current as a Teacher
  13. Teaching Goals

Appendices:

  • Appendix A: Class discussion handouts
  • Appendix B: Handouts for group activities and projects
  • Appendix C: Peer response sheets
  • Appendix D: Guidelines for library searches
  • Appendix E: Student reflective essays from Literature and Culture and Environmental Issues classes
  • Appendix F: Current supplemental articles
  • Appendix G: Sequenced journal questions
  • Appendix H: Final portfolio guidelines
  • Appendix I: Sample student Papers
  • Appendix J: Daedalus discussion transcripts
  • Appendix K: Student evaluations
  • Appendix L: Student narrative evaluations
  • Appendix M: Sample syllabi
  1. Statement of Teaching Responsibilities
  2. Statement of Teaching Philosophy and Goals
  3. Description of Methods Used in Specific Courses
  4. Description of Curricular Revisions and Steps 
    Take to Improve My Teaching
  5. Peer Evaluation of My Teaching
  6. Student Evaluation of My Teaching
  7. Audio and Video Tapes of My Instruction
    and of Student Performances
  8. Samples of Student Work
  9. Successful Students
  10. Other Evidence of Good Teaching
  11. Future Teaching Goals
  12. Appendices
    • Appendix A:List of my teaching responsibilities in 1994-95 and 1995-96
    • Appendix B: Course descriptions, syllabi, 
      handouts, tests, and other related materials
    • Appendix C: Peer Evaluations of my teaching
    • Appendix D: Student evaluations of my teaching
    • Appendix E: Audio and video tapes of my instruction and of student performances
    • Appendix F: Samples of student work
    • Appendix G: Information about successful students    
    • Appendix H: Other evidence of good teaching

 

How to develop a teaching portfolio?

Step 1: Develop and write a Teaching Statement

A teaching statement has 5 important categories:

  • Learning goals: discipline-specific knowledge, skills, attitudes that are important for students’ academic, personal and professional success
  • Teaching methods: specific teaching methods and how they contribute to students’ accomplishment of learning goals and align with student expectations and needs
  • Learning assessment: specific tools used to assess student learning and descriptions of how these tools facilitate student achievement of learning goals
  • Teaching assessment: strengths and areas for improvement of one’s teaching based on evidence, along with plans for continuing development
  • Learning Environment: specific ways diverse identities, experiences, etc. are accounted for and integrated into teaching methods
Step 2: Gather your evidence

Throughout your career, keep anything and everything related to your teaching! Use an archive (a digital folder or physical folder/box) where you can keep everything and can easily find it! Of particular interest are material personal to you, material from others, and products of your good teaching.

Personal MaterialMaterial from OthersProducts of Good Teaching
  • List of teaching responsibilities and way courses were taught
  • Teaching philosophy statement
  • Teaching goals for next 5 years
  • Representative course syllabi (and why done this way)
  • Description of steps taken to evaluate and improve one’s teaching
  • Curricular revisions (new projects, materials, etc.)
  • Self-evaluation (esp. if contradictory documents in the portfolio)
  • Publications on teaching
  • Supervision roles (advising, theses/dissertations, group projects, etc.)
  • Statements from colleagues who have observed your teaching
  • Statements from colleagues who have witnessed out-of-class activities
  • Student and course evaluations (esp. those that indicate improvements)
  • Department statements about your teaching
  • Performance reviews as a faculty advisor
  • Honors, awards, grants and other recognition of your teaching
  • Invitations for papers or presentations on teaching
  • Participation in teaching development within your discipline, department, or college
  • Teaching-related professional development (workshops, reading groups, etc)
  • Teaching research (Scholarship on Teaching and Learning)
  • Videotape of your teaching– Student scores on standardized tests
  • Student comments, such as in emails
  • Student essays, creative work, lab books, publications, etc.
  • Information about student career choices or opportunities that are effects of your courses or help
  • Record of students that move to and succeed in advanced courses in your discipline
  • Statements from alumni
  • Examples of graded student showing range of scores and explanations of why they were so graded
Step 3: Organize your evidence

There are many ways to organize your evidence after collecting it. For use internally to the University of Oregon, we recommend organizing it around the University of Oregon's Teaching Evaluation Standards. Arrange your evidence in terms of how it reflects your use and development of

  • professional teaching practices,
  • inclusive teaching practices,
  • engaged teaching practices, and
  • research-informed teaching practices.

These are what evaluators at UO are going to examine—make it easy for evaluators to find and identify the standards in your teaching.

You can use this same organization for use outside of UO, but may need more clear framing for readers. You could also identify a goal to emphasize in your portfolio, for example:

  • Improvement in teaching skills
  • Evolution of teaching responsibilities over time
  • Breadth of teaching responsibilities
  • Particular theme(s) in your teaching

Once you have your goal, refine evidence and prioritize according to your goal:

  • Focus on the most pertinent evidence
  • Lump less pertinent items together, e.g. “Related Responsibilities”
Step 4: Write reflective & summary statements about the evidence

When writing your reflections:

  • Be concise and to the point
  • Clarify context of evidence as needed
  • Refer to the appendices for details, but include most relevant evidence in the summary

As you write, consider these ideas:

  • how the evidence reflects your use of and development around the University of Oregon's Teaching Evaluation Standards
  • questions of student motivation and how to influence it
  • the goals of instruction, both for individual courses and in general
  • the development of rapport with students as a group and individually
  • the assessment of various teaching strategies as they related to the instructional goals
  • the role of disciplinary knowledge in teaching and how students learn the discipline
  • recent innovations in the content of the field and their effects on teaching

You may find that your evidence reveals something unexpected, unspoken, or subconscious about your teaching. Consider a revision of your teaching statement to ensure it reflects the evidence that is in your portfolio.

Step 5: Get feedback and revise accordingly

Share your portfolio items with others and ask for feedback. Similarly, offer to review other's portfolios or teaching materials and provide feedback for them.

Step 6: Rewrite YOUR CV and refer readers to your teaching portfolio

If your portfolio is in a online format, indicate the URL link to your portfolio in your CV. You can also refer to your teaching portfolio in your cover letters for job applications, award applications, etc.

 

Quick Tips for Writing A Portoflio
  • Brevity: keep it concise and to the point
  • Context: align with particular university or department mission, goals, etc.
  • Criteria: customize according to particular audience – give it what it needs to
  • Accountability: be prepared to provide and explain your…
    • Philosophy of teaching and teaching goals
    • Ability to design courses, materials, assignments, etc
    • Style of teaching and how it facilitates student learning
    • Student learning outcomes
    • Evaluation and reflection on your own teaching
  • Documentation: keep everything
  • Input: seek evaluations and feedback from others
  • Reflection: update regularly
  • Assistance: get help from TEP
  • Action: start now!

 

Further Reading and External Resources

If you want to know more, here are some books and websites you might find interesting: