My Olympic goal is decluttering, and there are a heap of materials from my classroom hiding in a closet. Before I seek and destroy all paper, it would be good to give myself a heads-up on what needs to be kept to go into a portfolio.
I stumbled across something that mentioned multimedia portfolios, and remembered a training from two summers ago where we navigated a PDF with a main menu with chapters and sub-chapters. I don’t have the software to create such a document, however, it would be an excellent ambition once the paper version is sorted out.
This website describes a Minimal, Average, and Ferrari portfolio. However, the strategy lacks any sense of organization.
WSU suggests organizing by Goals, Responsibilities, Evaluations, and Results.
U Tennessee has good information, several suggested strategies of organization, and a list of useful content.
Their list of things that might go in (regardless of how it’s organized):- A list and descriptions of courses you have taught.
- Syllabi (You may want to include 2 syllabi from the same course that demonstrates changes you have made in course content).
- Your philosophy of teaching
- Student evaluations
- Exams, quizzes, projects. May want to include graded student work that demonstrates your written feedback.
- Teaching awards
- Statement of your roles, responsibilities, and goals as a teacher.
- Instructional materials used in your courses (ex., handouts, computer programs, audio/visual materials)
- Letters or comments about your teaching from colleagues, peer observers, students, alumni, department head, etc.
- Committee work
- Attendance of teaching seminars, conferences, workshops
- Participation in curriculum design
- Evidence of what you have done to improve your teaching
- Innovative teaching methods
- A plan for improvement
- Videotape of your teaching
- A separate section (log) for reflections
Hmmm. I was going to color-code the things hiding in boxes that shouldn’t be thrown away. This list doesn’t contain much student work. I definitely have items with feedback as well as other creative student work. Perhaps the latter isn’t needed??
