As teachers, we know the value of being reflective practitioners, but the hectic pace of the semester can make it difficult to build in time for such reflection. Getting into the habit of maintaining a teaching portfolio, which is often a required component of the academic job search, can ease your entry to the job market while also providing a structure for the kinds of thoughtful reflection that can make you a more effective teacher.

Join the Teaching and Learning Center for this end-of-semester workshop, where we’ll analyze examples of effective teaching portfolios in order to understand how they can both prompt and reflect ongoing development in your teaching. We’ll workshop the contents of participants’ own existing or hypothetical teaching portfolios, with an eye toward establishing the materials that would best document and contextualize your teaching. We’ll also consider the possibilities afforded by digital portfolios, and discuss strategies for launching and maintaining your portfolio over time. Participants are encouraged to bring any teaching materials (syllabi, assignments, teaching statements) they have included or would consider including in a portfolio.

Whether you are a first-year student or currently on the market, it is never too early—or late!—to develop a compelling teaching portfolio.

This workshop was offered in Fall 2016 as an in-person workshop at the Graduate Center, CUNY. The workshop and materials were developed by Elizabeth Decker.

Materials

All materials on this page and in the linked google folder are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 International Public License.

This folder contains outreach materials, workshop plans and a bibliography with additional resources.

Materials Folder: Teaching Portfolio Workshop

Workshop Plan

Overview of Time

I. Introductions (15 min) 

II. Overview and Example Showcase (30 min)

• Share some general information about teaching portfolios: what they comprise, and why, where, and how you might assemble one
• Portfolio as both product and process
• Discuss its potential components and various purposes (for job applications, for professional development), and consider the affordances of digital v print portfolios
• Survey some examples of print and online portfolios to give participants of sense of possible structures and formats (and some pitfalls). 

III. Activity I: Portfolio Review (30 min)

Participants will review sample portfolios from a range of disciplines, produced for various purposes, in various formats, and by grad students and faculty both in/out of CUNY. Framing questions to guide their evaluation of the portfolios (in pairs or small groups):

1. Which of the portfolios did you find most effective? Why? 
2. What did you think were the most compelling components of the portfolios you reviewed? The least?

IV. Activity II: Portfolio Workshop (30 min)

Participants will then use the samples as a point of departure for thinking about how they would construct own portfolios. They can work individually, using these guiding questions to help them generate ideas. We’ll spend the last 10 minutes sharing takeaways. 

1. Why are you assembling this portfolio, and for whom?
2. How would you describe your approach as a teacher? List some of the beliefs and practices that are most central to your teaching.
3. What items would you include in your portfolio to illustrate your teaching philosophy and approach?
4. How and where would you arrange these items? (Draft a TOC for a print portfolio, or a sitemap of the teaching section of a web site, if you plan to put the materials online.)  
5. What additional materials might you need to create or acquire to complete your portfolio? 

V. Questions and Survey (15 min)