eportfolio for your professional teaching practice for your professional teaching practice developed...

ePortfolio for Your Professional Teaching Practice Developed by Kathleen Bortolin and Liesel Knaack, Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning,

Vancouver Island University

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Moving within the academic world, you have probably heard about ePortfolios. And you’ve probably figured out that they are a sleek, web-induced innovation that help professionals, especially academics, keep track of their growth and development in a variety of areas.

According to Bauer (2010), the academic ePortfolio is a selection of online, reflective, integrative, and personal documents that present how you have developed as a teacher-scholar in your discipline. ePortfolios showcase artifacts representing your accomplishments related to teaching, research, community-engagement and other service in order to highlight your growth. ePortfolios are constantly evolving, and can be described as a process as much as a product, and need to be modified over time.

According to Pat Hutchings from American Association of Higher Education, “A teaching portfolio is a coherent set of materials, including work samples and reflective commentary on them, compiled by a faculty member to inquire into and represent his or her teaching practice as related to student learning and development." Typically, a teaching portfolio is a dossier that includes selected documentation of your teaching effectiveness and your reflection on your teaching.

Why Create an ePortofolio?

Through the process of selecting and organizing material for a portfolio, instructors engage in a reflective process that aids in improving one’s understanding of effective practice.

ePortfolios are a step toward a more public, professional view of teaching as a scholarly activity

Since ePortfolios develop over time and are constantly evolving, they can provide a visual representation of growth as an ongoing process of inquiry, experimentation, and reflection.

Can capture evidence of one’s entire career, in contrast to one particular area Provide easy access to materials and artifacts that demonstrate your academic

activities, achievements and goals (Bauer, 2010). Provide a personal, holistic portrait of an academic as a scholar, teacher, colleague, and

citizen (Bauer, 2010). Demonstrate that you are tech savvy and current in regards to professional

development and growth.



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How to Get Started

Review other teaching portfolios. Look at the teaching portfolios of friends, colleagues, or

department instructors – or search the Internet for some examples. This is a great opportunity

to see how others have presented their professional experiences.

Write a statement of teaching philosophy. Articulating your values about teaching helps you

choose the best pieces of evidence to support those values. For example, if your teaching

philosophy highlights the importance of collaborative learning, find an assignment or project

that showcases how you use this approach.

Consider student, course and instructor evaluations and feedback. Have you gathered any

informal feedback from students? What are they saying about your strengths and skills? What

do you do well around student learning?

Find sample materials. Review syllabi, assignments, lesson plans, and classroom materials, and

choose those which represent your best work.

Schedule a classroom observation by a faculty member. Have the faculty member write a

letter describing the observation.

Create file folders on your computer labelled with ePortfolio section names. Start copying

examples for your ePortfolio into the file folders. This will make it easier to upload to your web-

based template later on.



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Steps to Creating an ePortfolio

(modified from Elements of a Professional Academic ePortfolio, Bauer, 2010)

1) Collect and save documents that represent your activities, accomplishments and best work in your area.

2) Reflect and think about your growth and development as a scholar teacher in each of the areas (i.e., teaching research, service).

a. Reflective questions: i. What did you learn as a result of this activity?

ii. How did it benefit you? iii. For example, if you served as an article reviewer, go beyond stating that

you did serve as reviewer (CV) but talk about what you gained from the process (reflective ePortfolio). How are you a better writer? How has the quality of you articles improved? What do you have yet to learn and why?

3) Select from the collected documents those that are representative of your work as a teacher scholar in your field and that demonstrate competencies such as effective teaching, creativity, collaboration, research, presentation, publication, mentoring, scholarly teaching, etc.

4) Connect and create cohesion among the various portfolio elements (teaching, research, community engagement) so that the various elements build on each other and support each other.

5) Collaborate and seek constructive feedback from peers, faculty, administrators, etc. both within your institution and beyond.

6) Locate documents in digital format

7) Build a skeleton framework in a digital website tool (e.g., WordPress, Weebly) to start uploading your content



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Organizing your ePortfolio

Your ePortfolio will need to have headings or sections that help organize your artifacts and reflections. There are endless combinations of headings and subheadings to help structure your ePortfolio. This is where creativity and personalization come into play.

Here are some ideas to get you started (modified from Elements of a Professional Academic ePortfolio, Bauer, 2010):

Teaching Research Service Other Teaching Philosophy Statement

Documentation of your Teaching (course outlines, syllabi, rubrics, artifacts, assignments, exams, video)

Teaching effectiveness (student feedback, peer teaching reviews, letters)

Student Learning Demonstrations (assignments, activities, product of learning )

Activities to Improve Instruction (new course dev, faculty development activities, Pro-D, new teaching methods)

Contributions to Teaching Profession and/or Your Institution (publications, service on teaching committees, curriculum revision for department)

Scholarly Teaching (articles, presentations, teaching conferences, workshops, certificates)

Research statement

Research interests

Research publications/ presentations

Grants/Awards you have received

Scholarly Activity relating to Teaching

Community Engagement (course-based engagement, research in the community)

Committee work

Volunteer work

Administrative Roles

Advising/mentoring of students or faculty

Teaching, research, and/or service awards

Nominations for awards you have received

Education or certificates you have completed

CV/Resume

Interests and Abilities

Special projects you have been part of



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Examples



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Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: Possible

Framework for Portfolio Components

Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson

Adopted from the March 1987 AAHE Bulletin

1. Encourage Contact Between Students and Faculty Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of classes is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students' intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and future plans.

2. Develop Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort that a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions sharpens thinking and deepens understanding.

3. Encourage Active Learning

Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.

4. Give Prompt Feedback

Knowing what you know and don't know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses. When getting started, students need help in assessing existing knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. At various points during college, and at the end, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves.



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5. Emphasize Time on Task Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use one's time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis of high performance for all.

6. Communicate High Expectations

Expect more and you will get more. High expectations are important for everyone - for the poorly prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well motivated. Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high expectations for themselves and make extra efforts.

7. Respect Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning

There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college. Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learn in new ways that do not come so easily.

More Resources For more resources related to Teaching Practice Portfolios, please visit the CIEL blog: https://wordpress.viu.ca/ciel/2014/01/14/new-eportfolio-development-sessions/

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