Developing a Teaching Portfolio

Introduction

A teaching portfolio is an important document that records your teaching accomplishments and aids in reflective pedagogical practice. Depending on your purpose, your teaching portfolio can either be a formative document or a summative document. That is, your plans for improving your teaching and student learning, or demonstrating your teaching accomplishments so far

You may need a teaching portfolio when applying for a promotion, Teaching and Learning award or grant or even new academic appointment. Use the document to highlight your strengths in teaching and learning. This is a living document and should be updated regularly.

To begin the process of developing your unique Teaching Portfolio start by writing your beliefs and goals for teaching (philosophy) and integrate this with the teaching and learning methods you use to stimulate students’ learning of concepts, ideas and skills in your discipline (practice).

Finally, using a combination of self‐reflection, formal and informal student feedback, and peer feedback, you will be in a position to substantiate the claims you make about your excellence in teaching (performance).

Teaching Portfolio Structure

Your Teaching Portfolio should be well structured and include a table of contents summarising content along with heading and subheadings that clearly identify and separate the portfolio’s components.  Inclusions and format of your individual portfolio may vary depending upon your discipline and also the purpose it is intended for.

The components we suggest you include as a minimum (but not limited to) in your teaching portfolio are outlined below. As you are in the early stages of your teaching career, we realise that you may not be ready to address all components, yet.

1. Personal Details

For example:  Full name, current position, email, date (as at), contact details etc

2. Context Statement

Depending on the purpose of your teaching portfolio, it may benefit to include a brief context statement. This may include contextual information about the university, the course and the broad demographics of the students you teach and how that informs your approach to teaching.

3. Teaching Philosophy

Your philosophy statement should cover areas such as:

• Why teaching is important to you.
• Your understanding of how your students learn.
• What your role as a teacher is in facilitating student learning.
• How your approach to teaching supports the learning process (considering the cognitive and affective domains and the development of higher order thinking).
• How you go about determining whether your approach is achieving its objectives.
• How your philosophy on teaching is informed by the University's teaching and learning policies.

4. Teaching Practice

In your Teaching Portfolio you need to document your past and current teaching practice, self-reflection and plans for future improvement, including:

• Courses you have taught and your role.
• Students you have supervised.
• Teaching materials you have prepared and developed.
• A description of your approach to teaching including catering for diversity in the classroom.
• Assessment of student work.
• Evidence of professional development in relation to teaching and/or your discipline area.

5. Teaching Performance:

Your teaching portfolio needs to include information that provides evidence of your teaching performance, including:

• Student feedback on teaching - surveys, mid-semester feedback, focus groups, emails etc.
• Peer review of teaching - working with colleagues on teaching materials and/or practice, peer observations, conversations and consultations, working with Learning Design staff on elements of your practice or teaching materials
• Your students' achievements, results, examples of assessment (with their permission)
• Presentations or research on the scholarship of teaching and learning
• Leadership activities

Examples of what could be included in a Teaching Portfolio

The usual practice is to collect material for your portfolio on an ongoing basis.  The below table has some examples of what could be included (but not limited to) in your teaching portfolio.