NUTSHELL NOTES

"Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado
at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

Office of Teaching Effectiveness
1250 14th St. Room 720
Denver, CO 80217-3364

Phone (303)556-4915
FAX (303)556-2678
Volume 2 Number 9

TEACHING PORTFOLIOS - II

This issue challenged the one-page format! The following is a checklist of good entries for a teaching portfolio. Begin a file early in the year in which to archive your entries as they occur.

1. Perspective of Responsibilities

Course loads, contact hours, class sizes, numbers of preparations, numbers of sections, your qualifications to teach assigned courses, preparation of students entering your course.

REASON: There are many inequities in teaching conditions, and a reviewer should know the circumstances under which one has to perform. When professors are ranked solely on the basis of numerical summaries from global questions on student evaluation forms, the inequities are always ignored.

2. Note any cross-over between teaching and professional achievements

A. Student involvement

B. Class lessons, exercises or seminars that resulted from your research

REASON: Many of us assume that our research transfers into better teaching. Sometimes it does, but we are not likely to get due credit from any reviewer unless we demonstrate this with specific examples. Getting due credit requires solid documentation.

3. Course-specific summary for each course reviewed

A. Abstract of (250 words maximum—this can be based largely on your syllabus) that captures

i. why the course is taught

ii. goals—what you want your students to know

iii. primary methods you use to teach

iv. primary methods you use to assess learning

v. your self-evaluation of success in meeting goals

B. Validation and defense of your abstract

i. results of value-added assessment (validates content learning)

ii. summary of formative evaluation (validates methods)

iii. summary of student evaluations (validates students' satisfaction)

iv. evidence from chairs or colleagues ( based on primary information such as in-class visits or review of exams— hearsay from colleagues and students is not evidence)

v. recognition from letters, awards, evidence of students' success

REASON: Student evaluations (good measures of general satisfaction) should not be confused with actual learning assessment. Student evaluations are commonly misused when they are presumed to be measures of content learning or indicators of superior methodology. While student evaluations are statistically correlative with many other measures of good teaching, the correlations are not high enough to allow the generally valid statistical trends to be inferred as applying to a given individual. Value-added assessment that measures students' knowledge before and after a course (see Nutshell Notes, v. 2, n. 6) is a more rigorous measure of actual student learning that can be attributed to a specific course. Those who outline the goals they set for their courses and document how well they met these are apt to get better credit for accomplishments.

4. Outside-of-class teaching services performed directly for students

A. Tutoring, advising and counseling

B. Help in placement (jobs, internships & graduate schools)

C. Activities with academic clubs

D. Independent research supervision (including undergraduate & graduate)

E. Leading students on non credit field trips, to meetings, etc.

5. Outside-of-class teaching services performed indirectly for students

A. Class preparation activities - document unusual efforts

B. Lab or equipment maintainance or curating and expanding resources

C. Strengthening campus media and library resources

D. Soliciting donations of materials for classes

E. Building speaker networks

REASON: Research shoes that important growth in students results from academic services provided by faculty outside of class. These are the most often overlooked contributions of successful teachers. When reviewers fail to seek or to credit these important activities, the evaluation may be flawed.

6. Your own professional development in teaching improvement

A. Any uses made of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness materials/programs

B. Off-campus meetings and workshops on teaching

C. Organizations/networks joined that focus on faculty development

D. Writing, editing, reviewing, or researching for own discipline's pedagogy

E. New strategies learned, initiated, tried and any outcomes

F. On-campus activities to promote better teaching or teaching environments.

G. In a few sentences, a summary of your teaching philosophy and how it may have changed through your growth and progress since your last evaluation.

REASON: Time is well-invested in our own growth. Learning new concepts and strategiesfor our teaching is as exciting as new learning in our disciplines. Our teaching, like our research, requires reflection and renewal if it is to remain vibrant and exciting to us.

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