How to write a well-structured teaching portfolio

University teachers have different pedagogical skills and show pedagogical abilities in different ways. This is underpinned by the assessment criteria of the Pedagogical Academy and  Excellent Teaching Practitioner reward system (Framragende underviser/ETP) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at UiB. In the ETP process academics apply for the ETP status through the submission of a teaching portfolio which is assessed by an evaluation committee with peers.

The workshop is based on nearly two decades of developing and researching scholarly underpinned reward systems, mainly in STEM disciplines at Lund University [1]. It departs from the notion that it may be a considerable and unusual personal challenge to expose ones own teaching practices to peer review.

The workshop revolves around structured ways to document and analyse teaching practices in ways that both support ones own pedagogical development and helps portfolio reading and assessment. A portfolio must thus be written in a trustworthy and readable manner. To achieve this, the university teacher should problematize teaching and learning observations, demonstrate problem solving through teaching design, and establish how this has influenced student learning. Typically such a portfolio also displays

• teaching career developments from intuitive reactive to deliberate proactive teaching;
• teaching team collaborative efforts; and
• building of useful local or public knowledge of student learning

However, some portfolios are not well structured and thus fail to show the required aspects. In the workshop we will therfore demonstrate typical portfolio writing problems and share a portfolio structure that appears robust with respect to such pitfalls. Further, during the workshop participants will analyze previously assessed sample portfolios in order to develop ideas for their own future portfolio. There will be optional possibilities for workshop participants to engage in peer portfolio feedback and workshop leader feedback after the summer, prior to submitting an ETP application.

Reference
[1] Olsson, T, Mårtensson, K, Roxå, T., & Ahlberg, A., 2012: Pedagogical competence and teaching skills – a development perspective from Lund University, Sweden. In: Szczyrba, B and Gotzen, S: Entwicklung, Dokumentation und Nachweis von Lehrkompetenz an Hochschulen. LIT Verlag Berlin.