Teaching portfolios

ReSET Summer School 2007

Ekaterinburg
Lars Binderup
University of Southern Denmark

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 Plan

• What is a teaching portfolio?

• The uses of a teaching portfolio.

• Suggestions for content of a teaching port-

folio.

• Process of revision and review.

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 What is a teaching portfolio?

Three main parts:

1. The participant’s teaching CV
• Methods
• Content

• The participant’s teaching philosophy –

reflections on methods and aims.
• New experiences, developments, changes
(feedback on the impact of the ReSET
school) – continually updated. 3
 What is a teaching portfolio useful for?

At least three purposes of a teaching portfolio:

1. Reflection
• Formulating a teaching port folio can be a
part of and support a process of reflection on
one’s own methods of teaching.
• This can turn into revisions and changes in
procedure, improvements in techniques and
aims.
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 What is a teaching portfolio useful for?

2. Applications
• Portfolios can be useful for participants in
future applications for teaching jobs.
• Widely used as a requirement in application-
procedures in the West today.
• 1990: 10 American universities used it.
1997: 1.000 American universities used it
• Mandatory in Canada for 20 years.
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 What is a teaching portfolio useful for?

3. Feedback and documentation

• Portfolios can be useful for documenting the
impact of and giving feedback on our ReSET
seminar.

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 Preliminary remarks

• The ideal teaching style and teaching

philosophy varies (and should vary) from
teacher to teacher.
• There is no ‘right answer’ when formulating a
teaching philosophy.
• Teaching methods should fit the topic.
• Perhaps teaching in philosophy (especially normative
disciplines) should be different from teaching in other
subjects (history, sociology etc.)?
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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

*1. Teaching CV
Account of previous teaching experience
– Affiliations as a teacher
– Teaching (what classes, duration, content)
– Supervision (amount, level)
– Examination (amounts, forms, level)

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

*2. Teaching methods used

– What teaching methods have you used in
practice (lecturing, dialogue-based classes,
methods of activating of students, e-learning
etc.)?
– Experiences with and critical reflection over
methods used.

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

3. Formal pedagogical training (if any)

– Attended pedagogical courses
– Pedagogical books read
– Collegial supervision (mentor, rolemodel)

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

1. Student-evaluations
– Have you had your teaching evaluated by
students? (what forms of evaluation?)
– What were the results?
– Has the feed-back from students been useful?
Have you changed your methods/readings/
curriculum as a result of student feed-back?
– Are student evaluations a good means for
improving teaching?
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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

5. Experience with study planning and curriculum

building
– Have you had any experience as a course-
organizer? (describe it)
– What are your thoughts on good course-
planning? (aims, pitfalls?)

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

6. Samples of teaching materials used

– You can attach samples of teaching materials
that you have yourself composed.
– E.g. books, readers, handouts, notes, trans-
lations.

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

*7. Pedagogical or teaching philosophy

– Explain your views on university pedagogics
and reflect critically on it.
– What is your favourite method(s) of teaching?
Why are they good?
– How do the methods contribute to achieving the
goals of teaching your topic?

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

*7. Pedagogical or teaching philosophy (cont.)

– Which methods are bad/counterproductive?
– What are the challenges for your becoming a
better teacher at your home university? (e.g. lack
of time, lack of power to change curricula,
physical limitations).
– In what direction do you aim to develop your
teaching skills in the future? How?

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 Suggested content of teaching portfolio

*8. Feedback on our ReSET seminar

– What have you learnt from the ReSET seminar
about teaching? What inspired you (and what
did not)?
– Have you used methods or curricula from the
school in your own teaching? What were the
results (good and bad)?
– Other comments on the ReSET seminars and
suggestions for the improvement of future
seminars.
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 Process of review and feedback
Participants will get feedback on the drafts of their
portfolios during future contact-sessions:

• Feedback by resource faculty/program

directors.
• Feedback by fellow participants in groups.

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 Final comments on teaching portfolios

• Construct your OWN portfolio according to

your own ideas and thoughts. (No requirement
to follow the outline above rigidly).
• Language: English (perhaps Russian).
• First draft should be written in the coming
intersession period (ready for the Spring
session).
• Length: Anything from 3 pages and up.
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 ReSET seminar’s teaching philosophy

Two aims sum up OUR philosophy of teaching:

• Encouraging critical thinking and debate in

class.
• Encouraging student activity in the teaching
process.

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 Activating students

• A student can be active in a purely internal

sense (by thinking and concentrating).
• But, the relevant sense of ‘activation’ here is
that of external, observable activity by the
student.
• Thus, a student is active in the relevant sense
by speaking or writing.

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 Techniques for activating students

Activating in the classroom:

• Discussion of cases, examples in the lecture

• Group assignments during the class

• Students make small presentations with

opposition
• Asking direct questions to the class (while
avoiding intimidation, perhaps by mentioning
that there is no final answer to the question)
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 Techniques for activating students

Activating in the classroom:

• Structured debate (where students are
encouraged to defend their opinions).
• Short discussions two-and-two (of clearly
specified questions) during class.
• Playing games in class (assigning different
roles to students).
• Tests in class.
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 Techniques for activating students

Activating outside the classroom:

• Long-term group-assignments.
• Field-studies.
• Written assignments.
• Experiments/lab-work
• Working questions for the readings.
• Electronic discussion-groups. 23
 Techniques for activating students

Non-activating teaching methods:

• Classical lecturing (without discussion and
questions).
• Student presentations.
• Guest-lectures.
• Using audio/video in class.
• Reading at home (without working-questions
or assignments).
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 Techniques for activating students

Adopting a problem-oriented approach to the

topics taught can help to activate the
students.
• Instead of focusing on theoreticians (what
this or that authority said) and the theories,
focus on a problem.
• Then introduce the theories as their
distinctions and arguments become relevant
for solving the problem.
• Problem-orientation encourages the students
to think actively and participate in the debate.
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 Arguments for activating students

Discussion point:

• Do YOU use activating teaching in any of

these ways?

• Why?/Why not?

• By why is it important to activate student in

teaching?

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 Arguments for activating students

• Students remember what they do, not what

they hear or see. More precisely, we
remember:

……..5 % of what we see

…….10 % of what we hear

…….90 % of what we do
William James: “Learning by doing”
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 Arguments for activating students

• In participating, students acquire important

skills:
• an ability to formulate views and to discuss
in public (social debating skills).
• general abilities to cooperate (via more
interaction between students).

• these skills are important in any modern

work-environment.
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 Arguments for activating students

1) Activating the student in teaching tends to

encourage the student to….

• reflect on and be critical of what is being

taught (to think for him- or herself).
• see him or herself as a future researcher.

• climb higher on Bloom’s ladder of learning

(see next slide).
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 Bloom’s taxonomy of learning

1. Factual knowledge (by heart, superficial).

2. Understanding (basic understanding of the theory).
• Transferring/extrapolation (ability to use the
theory in new contexts).
• Analysis (ability to analyze the theory and
arguments).
• Synthesis (ability to synthesize into larger
wholes).
• Evaluation (ability to criticize, suggest courses of
action). 30
 Arguments for activating students

1) Activating the student in teaching promotes

a deep approach to teaching

as opposed to

superficial approach to teaching

(Entwistle, 1992) 31
 Arguments for activating students

Deep teaching-approach causes students to:

• Focus on understanding

• Actively engage the subject-matter

• Attempt to relate new ideas to existing

knowledge

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 Arguments for activating students

Deep teaching-approach causes students to:

• Relate concepts to experience

• Critically evaluate conclusions relative to the
premises
• Evaluate the logic of arguments critically

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 Arguments for activating students

Superficial teaching-approach causes students to:

• Focus exclusively on exam-requirements

• Experience tasks as external demands

• Fail to focus on overall purpose of teaching

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 Arguments for activating students

Superficial teaching-approach causes students to:

• Focus on elements without integrating them

• Not to attempt to go from specific examples

to general principles

• Memorize for exams rather than understand

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 Arguments for activating students

• Using activating techniques can help to vary

teaching – to fight boredom among students.

• By using different techniques, one can

engage different types of students (since
students learn in different ways).

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 Arguments for activating students

7) One can typically get more students involved

in the teaching (as opposed to the 5 most
active students that are always involved
anyway).

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 Limitations and problems of activation

1) Whether activating teaching works, or is

feasible, at all depends heavily on size of
class.
• ……and on the character of the material.

• Requires hard work from the teacher (more

thinking on the spot and more preparation).

• Affects the teacher-student relationship

towards a more symmetrical relation.
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 Limitations and problems of activation

• Students may come to lack the leadership and

paradigm or role-model that a teacher
provides in classical class teaching.

• The best students may not need activation –

they typically do it on their own.
• The students may not be mature enough for
active participation.

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