Teaching Portfolio Workshop for Graduate Students

1. With special thanks to the Graduate School and Dean McCarthy Teaching Portfolio Workshop for Graduate Students Part I: Beginnings I.1. What exactly is it? I.2. Getting Started: The Teaching Statement

2. (…) the teaching portfolio (…) can be another opportunity to showcase one’s preparedness for a faculty position. Instead of looking at it as a hurdle, I should have focused on how it can be used to dramatize the hard work I put into my courses George David Clark Developing an Effective Teaching Portfolio Chronicle of Higher Education, July 9, 2012

3. What is the portfolio? • Collection of documents and reflections that showcases teaching experiences, development, and potential • A way to continuously engage (with) teaching theory and practice • Conversation starter Based on: http://www.hallinto.oulu.fi/optsto/tiveko/artikkeleita/improving.htm

4. Based on Longfield (2010), Creating a Teaching Portfolio: Guidelines for TAs, available athttp://www.units.muohio.edu/celt/students/gstep/Guidlines%20for%20Teaching%20Assistants.pdf Why do it? • Preparation for the job market and academic careers • Documents teaching performance • Shows how one envisions him/herself as part of an intellectual community • Allows practice in thinking and talking about teaching • Improves/develops teaching • Formative summary and evaluation • Reflexivity and development Image from: http://www.hallinto.oulu.fi/optsto/tiveko/artikkeleita/improving.htm

5. Why now? • Sheer practicality • Process and the habit of “documenting” process • Grad School as formative to pedagogy – theory and practice (Longfield, 2010) • Creativity and imagination • (still) Continuous engagement with teaching and learning as both a student and a teacher

6. Based on Longfield (2010), Creating a Teaching Portfolio: Guidelines for TAs, available athttp://www.units.muohio.edu/celt/students/gstep/Guidlines%20for%20Teaching%20Assistants.pdf What does a teaching portfolio include? Documentation/Evidence + Reflection • Teaching philosophy • List of courses taught with instructional goals • Samples of instructional materials • Samples of student work • Summary of (formal and informal) evaluations • Teaching observation reports/letters • Reflections on what you learned and how you intend to develop in the future

7. Based on Longfield (2010), Creating a Teaching Portfolio: Guidelines for TAs, available athttp://www.units.muohio.edu/celt/students/gstep/Guidlines%20for%20Teaching%20Assistants.pdfWhere/How do you start? • Identify and reflect on your own preferences for teaching styles, goals, and values • Collect and keep materials • Arrange for and commit to participation in teaching preparation activities • Consider your audience(s)

8. Teaching Portfolio Best Practices • Organize • Table of contents • Clear sections with introductions/reflections • Analytical summaries • Chart reflexive development as a teacher • Remain student-centered • Link students’ accomplishments to your teaching • Highlight students’ learning in relation to your learning

9. But what if I am/have been (just a) TA? • Teaching Documentation Program (TDP) • Observations & letters • Close and meaningful interactions with students • Broaden the range of teaching/learning experiences

10. Questions/Comments so far?

11. Teach-Chat • What excites you about the prospect of creating a teaching portfolio? • What stifles/blocks/scares you? • How do you see a teaching portfolio as beneficial to your career and pedagogical development? • Next steps…

12. Getting Started: The Teaching Statement [Job application teaching] statements communicate a job candidate’s approach to teaching and learningto a faculty considering whether to make that candidate one of their colleagues. Since a committee cannot possibly observe the teaching of every applicant, the teaching philosophy helps search committee members imagine themselves in each candidate’s classroom O’Neal, Meizlish, & Kaplan (2008) http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no23.pdf

13. Getting Started: Some Questions the Teaching Statement Should Answer • How do you teach? (show, don’t tell!) • Why do you teach the way that you do? What are your goals/objectives for learning? • How do you assess the effectiveness of your teaching? • How do you respond to such assessments and how is that linked to your development as a teacher?

14. Good Teaching Statements include… Based on a survey of 457 search committee chairs (Meizlish & Kaplan, 2007) • Evidence of practice • Reflectiveness/Reflexivity • Teaching values and the value of teaching • Commitment to an inclusive classroom • Clear and readable writing style For more on the above, see: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no23.pdf

15. Good Teaching Statements communicate… • Confidence • Memorable uniqueness • Connections between teaching and research • Intellectual, demanding, cutting edge persona For an interesting look at common “mistakes” made when writing a teaching statement, check out this post on The Professor Is In: http://theprofessorisin.com/2011/09/16/thedreadedteachingstatement/

16. Let’s Get Started: Worksheet & Teach-Chat • What are your teaching experiences? • What is your teaching style? • Likes/Dislikes • Teaching goals • Teaching methods • What are your teaching/learning values? • Map out and try to connect elements of the above Talk with someone and listen carefully as s/he tells you about the above. Return to the worksheet.

17. Let’s Get Started: The First Paragraph • What patterns emerged from filling out the worksheet? • Summarize values, goals, methods in the first paragraph – develop with specific examples later • First sentence should be a “hook,” but a meaningful one & followed by a strong fishing line • Give it a try…

18. Next… • Next session is Nov. 13, same place/time • Focus: Demonstrating reflexive teaching practice • Continue drafting teaching statements • Collect materials that showcase your teaching • Syllabi • Class activities & students’ responses • Samples of student work with feedback • Reflections

19. Into the next… Please take a few minutes & let us know: • What will you remember from today? • What do you want to learn more about? • Other thoughts/comments about the workshop Thank You!