The Teaching Portfolio
Organize Classroom and Research Materials for Interviews and Tenure
Nov 9, 2009
Whether a college instructor is seeking her first full-time teaching job or preparing for tenure and promotion, preparing a teaching portfolio is a must. Instructors who are just beginning their teaching careers can start preparing their teaching portfolios by purchasing the following items:
- A file cabinet/storage: A file cabinet or some other type of storage (such as a plastic crate available at most office supply stores) will be useful in storing items related to teaching accumulated over a career. Instructors can also use electronic storage – a computer hard drive or external disk--for accumulating materials, although keeping hard copies of teaching artifacts, when possible is a good idea as well.
- Binders: Portfolio materials are typically presented to search committees and tenure/promotion committees in a binder. The size of the binder will obviously be determined by the number of materials demanded by the particular committee.
Keep Teaching Artifacts Organized
As soon as an instructor begins teaching, she should begin saving any materials related to her work in the classroom (hence the need for a file cabinet or some other type of storage). She should organize materials into file folders such as: syllabi, assignments, teaching awards, evidence of student achievement, research/publications. Any artifact related to teaching should be kept organized in the storage space for easy access when she needs to assemble a portfolio for a job interview or for tenure/promotion.
The Job Interview
A teaching portfolio can be an impressive way to present evidence of teaching effectiveness to a job search committee. Instructors should examine the job ad for clues as to what materials from their “teaching storage” will be most persuasive to a particular committee. Regardless of what materials go into the teaching portfolio, the portfolio should be prefaced by a 1-2 page statement of teaching philosophy that will serve as a guide for readers to the materials in the portfolio.
Tenure/Promotion
By the time an instructor is eligible for tenure and/or promotion, her “teaching storage” should be jam-packed with evidence of teaching effectiveness accumulated over six years (or more, if an instructor started assembling her teaching portfolio in graduate school). Instructors should be guided by their department and university tenure and promotion guidelines when assembling a binder to submit, but regardless of the materials required, if an instructor has been keeping her “teaching storage” up to date, she will experience less anxiety during the tenure/promotion process.
Anyone who teaches at the college/university level will be unable to avoid assembling a teaching portfolio at some point during her career. If an instructor starts accumulating evidence of teaching effectiveness from the moment she begins teaching her first class, assembling an impressive teaching portfolio for job interviews or tenure committees will be an easy task.
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