TDU Talk
ISSUE 8 ▪ OCTOBER 2009
PROVIDING EVIDENCE OF GOOD TEACHING PRACTICE
Writing a Portfolio for the National
Teaching Awards
Assoc. Prof. Lisa Emerson, Massey University
Why a Portfolio?
University of Texas
An Innovative Way of Gaining Student
Feedback on Teaching and Papers
Angela Martin, Computing and Mathematical Sciences
The Small Group Instructional Diagnosis
Process for Gaining Student Feedback
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson (TDU)
Improving Your Teaching and Gathering
Evidence Through Peer Feedback
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson (TDU)
Documenting One’s Teaching and
Professional Development
Dorothy Spiller (TDU)
“
We have decided to dedicate this issue of TDU Talk largely
to ways of providing evidence of good teaching practice.
This issue arose out of conversation at the recent Teaching
Network meetings, and is also reinforced by the gratifyingly large
number of student nominations of staff for Teaching Excellence
Awards (over 200!). Congratulations to all our staff whose
students were sufficiently impressed by their teachers to nominate
them. However, it has emerged that some staff have needed
assistance with the construction of Teaching Portfolios as this has been an
unfamiliar activity.
The University‟s Teaching Awards Committee decided to align the criteria for the
„in-house‟ teaching portfolios used to judge nominees, with those used by Ako
Aotearoa and the University to judge nominees for Tertiary Teaching Excellence
Awards. The reason for this is that we hope that staff, by preparing a good
portfolio for their School or Faculty, will be well placed to submit their work for
wider awards than the School/Faculty level ones. Staff might also be able to use
teaching portfolio preparation and write-up to help them with papers for education
-related journals or conferences, hence also contributing to their research
requirements without adding too much to their workload.
ā
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
So this issue of TDU Talk includes articles on how to construct teaching portfolios
as a way of providing evidence of sound teaching practice (Ako Aotearoa prefers
not to provide exemplars, in the interests of freeing staff to cover the criteria as
they see best – but our staff have asked for some further details on portfolio
construction). Teaching portfolios are an important component of the TDU‟s
Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, so learning how to construct one
can help you with this task if you enrol in the PGCert(TertTchg). The issue
commences with reflections from a successful Ako Aotearoa winner, Lisa
Emerson, on the benefits of constructing a portfolio. Then there are a number of
articles on ways of constructing a portfolio. We also include a novel way of
evaluating teaching and coursework used by one of the nominees, Angela Martin
of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, whose students were also interviewed
to substantiate Angela‟s description of the method. Then, a way of gaining
formative feedback on teaching practice, the “Small Group Instructional
•2•
Diagnosis”, is described. Staff may wish to avail themselves of this service which
can be offered by the Teaching Development Unit, and enables staff to decide if
anything needs changing or strengthening while a paper is still being taught. It
works best with student groups of no more than 40. Finally, we encourage staff to
think about having a lecture/class observation as a way of gathering feedback on
your teaching.
It‟s great to have the strong evidence of teaching being valued here, that we are
seeing with the awards nominations, and the willingness of staff to share good
practice. The Teaching Network attendees have suggested that it would be good to
be able to observe other staff‟s teaching practice, and TDU is compiling a list of
staff who are prepared to have „open lectures or classes‟ where others could stop in
to get different ideas that might refresh their own practice. If you are prepared to
share your practice with others in this way, please do email your name to
[email protected]
All the best as you engage in marking, and, unless you‟re teaching
summer school, post-teaching activities for the rest of the year.
Pip Bruce Ferguson
9th Quality in Postgraduate Research Conference
Educating Researchers for the 21st Century
13-16 April 2010
Adelaide, South Australia
Stamford Grand
.”
Same places,
different spaces
ASCILITE 2009, the 26th conference in the series,
is in Auckland City, Aotearoa New Zealand for the
second time in the history of the Society.
QPR conferences provide opportunities to:

Discuss policies affecting postgraduate education

Exchange views on current research and good practice in the field

Link special interest groups of supervisors, students, researchers,
administrators and policy makers
The QPR conferences are of great value and interest to policy makers,
supervisors, postgraduate administrators, educational researchers,
postgraduate students and academic developers working with both
students and supervisors.
http://qpr.edu.au/2010/index.html
•3•
Ascilite 2009 reflects on the emergence of
multiple spaces in our personal and learning
environments. The themes are:
BlendedSpace
Virtual Space
SocialSpace
MobileSpace
WorkSpace
December 6-9, 2009
www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/
ascilite 2009
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Reprinted with permission of Ako Aotearoa and Assoc. Prof. Lisa Emerson
(School of English and Media Studies, Massey University)
Lisa Emerson, the Prime Minister’s supreme award winner for 2008, reflects on writing a
portfolio for the national teaching awards and how it has impacted on her teaching….
I had not thought of applying for a teaching award. I teach large, first year,
compulsory courses, where high student evaluations are hard come by. So
when I was nominated for a national teaching award, I was more than a
little anxious.
To apply for a national teaching award involves preparing a teaching
portfolio of no more than 8,000 words. And this - writing a teaching
portfolio – turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what I did
as a teacher and why. As tertiary teachers, we all know that reflecting on
our teaching – what we‟re trying to achieve, and how we go about it – is a
vital part of our role. Yet reflection can so easily be crowded out of our day
as we meet multiple demands of teaching, research and administration.
Changes to my teaching are often made intuitively, and my reflection on
changes may be limited to “yes, that seemed to go OK” or “well, it was
worth a try – on to plan D!”
Writing a teaching portfolio gave me the space and time to bring reflection
on my teaching into the foreground of my mind. It was a chance to look
back at what I had done as a teacher, decisions I had made, strategies I had
trialled – and to look at the present and the future, at the kind of teacher I
would like to be.
(L Emerson, Massey University)
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
•4•
The Courage to Teach is available in
the Teaching Development Unit
library. To browse or borrow this
book, please visit the TDU Library in
A.B.04 or email Dorothy
([email protected]) or Preetha
([email protected]).
It‟s tempting to jump straight to numbers, to
student evaluations and evidence, to
techniques and strategies – as if that is what
comprises excellence in teaching. But the
criteria that Ako Aotearoa publish about the
teaching awards made me pause. Teaching
(Palmer)
is more than figures and technique: it‟s
about how we position ourselves in our relationships with our students, our
tutors, our subject, how we perceive our role, how we respond to the
unexpected question. So I stepped back, taking time to think and read about
teaching.
A major influence on my teaching has been Parker Palmer, an American
educationalist who is influenced by Quaker philosophy. Pulling his book,
The Courage to Teach off my shelves, I was caught afresh by his questions:
what do we teach, how do we teach, why do we teach – and most
importantly, who am I that teaches? As I sat down to think through my
portfolio I pondered each of those questions. The what I teach, and how I
teach were relatively straight forward – but the why question, and the who
question challenged me deeply.
Answering these questions became the foundation of my portfolio. The
criteria provided by Ako Aotearoa (see http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz) became an
excellent framework on which to base such reflection, and I used these
criteria as section headings, as well as adding a section on Teaching
Philosophy.
The criteria defined by Ako Aotearoa encourage the writer to think
intentionally and systematically about their teaching. But more than that,
the criteria challenged me to question every aspect of my teaching and to
test my assumptions. As I thought through my teaching, I tested every
teaching strategy with simple questions: “did this succeed? How do I
know?”
(L Emerson, Massey University)
•5•
Finding the answers to these questions took me beyond both my own
perceptions and formal student evaluations. I asked peers to observe my
classes and comment on my learning materials. I invited national and
international colleagues to look at my course websites and learning tools.
I‟ve always used writing in my classroom, even in large lectures. Now I
focused some of that writing so students were handing in short reflections
on the learning material which allowed me to understand what students
were hearing in my classes, and thus to fine tune my teaching. My
classroom seemed to expand as more voices contributed to the learning
context.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
We tend to think of teaching excellence as located in an individual teacher.
Reflecting on and evaluating my teaching made me realise that excellence
is located more broadly, in a community that is always expanding – in the
students with whom I share a classroom, within the School and institution I
work for, within the context and culture of tertiary education in New
Zealand, in the community of my discipline both nationally and
internationally. Palmer comments that “unlike many professions, teaching
is always done on the dangerous intersection of personal and public life.”
As I handed in my teaching portfolio, I had never felt this more keenly.
And what will be the result of this reflection as I wrote my portfolio – for
me, and, more importantly, for my students? First, I hope my students will
encounter a better teacher: a teacher whose investment in teaching and in
her discipline is palpable. As I tested and weighed every teaching strategy,
I discarded some older strategies and gained ideas for new approaches and
new learning tools. The process was both evaluative and creative – and the
outcome should be a more intentional, more creative teacher.
(L Emerson, Massey University)
Second, I hope that my students will be enabled to become more effective
learners. Specifically, I hope that they will be able to hear their own voices
more fully in my classroom, and to hear their voices in relation to others‟,
within the context of a broader community.
Finally, since I am a teacher of academic and scientific writing, I hope that
my careful evaluation of my teaching role and strategies will mean that my
students become better writers. That is, after all, what my job is about.
Writing a teaching portfolio for a teaching award is a deeply rewarding
experience, with potentially far reaching effects for teachers and students. I
would consider this process to have been one of the most enriching forms
of professional development I have experienced. Ako Aotearoa‟s
challenging criteria invite deep and rich evaluation of teaching. Writing a
teaching portfolio may be a daunting task – but it is well worth the effort.
ASDUNZ 2009
Annual conference for academic staff developers of the Universities of New
Zealand
26, 27 NOVEMBER 2009 ▪ IBIS TAINUI HAMILTON
Hosted with pleasure by the University of Waikato Teaching Development
Unit, together with Ako Aotearoa.
Featuring presentations and discussions on a variety of topics including:
appraisals ▪ research on teaching ▪ organizational issues around teaching and
learning ▪ graduate attributes ▪ higher
education to develop creativity
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
•6•
This article is downloaded, with permission, from the University of Texas website,
http://sunconference.utep.edu/CETaL/resources/portfolios/intro.htm
For those who value good teaching, portfolios offer a means to promote
better teaching and to document teaching achievement.
Teaching portfolios have gained a higher profile in recent years as a
creative form of summarizing and developing stronger teaching. For those
who may be dissatisfied with the limitations of standardized forms for
evaluating teaching through student evaluations, for example, the portfolio
offers an important alternative. For some, they are merely part of a
broader academic or career portfolio, showing how teaching, research and
service are all integrated. (This website focuses exclusively on teaching
portfolios.)
Teaching portfolios--and the process of creating or revising one--can have
many benefits or roles:

provide an occasion for reflection:
 on teaching goals
 on teacher-student relationships
 on effectiveness of teaching strategies
 on alternative methods for teaching and assessing teaching
•7•

enhance awareness of teaching methods

showcase a teacher's skills, growth and range

document teaching and its effectiveness

profile a specific course or teaching methods for other teachers

promote professional dialogue about teaching and growth towards an
active teaching community

record recognition of scholarship, presentations and awards on
teaching
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
One may well view teaching portfolios as parallel to the more familiar
process of presenting one's research achievements. After all, it is
appropriate to view Teaching as a Scholarly Activity. So, too, is
documenting it and sharing it. These reflective and communal activities
are a form of personal growth. Ideally, then, one might see the teaching
portfolio as an extension of one's curriculum vitae (CV). (The perspective
at this website is thus much closer in spirit to discussions at AAHE than
to the popular books by Seldin, 1993; 1997.)
In this site, we will highlight portfolios as creative acts, as forms of selfexpression in the professional context of teaching. As scholar-teachers,
we should be central actors in reviewing and presenting our work, rather
than passive objects of evaluation.
In addition, we will emphasize the process of developing a portfolio as a
tool for guiding self-improvement as much as for evaluating performance.
Portfolios are messy to construct, cumbersome to store, difficult to
score, and vulnerable to misrepresentation. But in ways that no
other assessment can, portfolios prove a connection to the
contexts and personal histories that characterize real teaching
and make it possible to document the unfolding of both teaching
and learning over time.
— Lee Shulman (1988)
Summative and Formative
Portfolios can be multi-purposed. Along one dimension, they can address
an administrative need to summarize one's teaching contribution in a
teaching institution: a form of summative evaluation. Along another axis,
one can use the assembly or development of a portfolio as an occasion for
self-reflection and growth: a formative evaluation. In teaching, as in
research, we may profit from blurring the distinction, or seeing the two as
complementary, not antithetical. In our site, we highlight both summative
and formative aspects, though our emphasis is on articulating the less
familiar formative dimension and its potentially vital role in summative
evaluation. (For more, see Formative and Summative Evaluation.)
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
•8•
A Portfolio Profile
Fundamentally, a teaching portfolio is similar to an artist's portfolio: a
sampling of the breadth, depth and quality of one's work, in order to
convey one's abilities, strengths or style, and achievements. But unlike
an artist's portfolio, it must display work indirectly, through descriptions,
documents and various forms of evidence.
You may also peruse a cross-section of other views and definitions:

List 1
Content
Depending on one's aim, the contents of a teaching portfolio might include
any of the following:

*statement of teaching philosophy or goals

summary of the roles and responsibilities one has adopted
as an expression of those goals

summary of teaching methods, strategies and teaching
environments employed towards meeting those goals

* feedback/evidence from students

* feedback/evidence from peers

feedback/evidence from others (administrators, alumni,
etc.)

* reflection on feedback, including self-reflection

documentation of improvement towards one's stated goals

samples of work or products of teaching (from syllabi or
videotapes to papers published by students), interpreted
and analyzed to show student learning or aspects of the
learning environment

habits of self-assessment and improvement

personal goals or objectives for the next several years

evidence and discussion of professional development,
including professional education-related activities, teachingrelated service, research, innovation, publications and
grants

recognition of teaching achievements, including awards,
published papers and invited presentations

an index to further evidence or archive of materials
•9•
Elements denoted by a star (*) are considered here
as the core of an effective portfolio, especially for the
first version.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
The Central Role of Teaching Philosophy
What characterizes good or effective teaching? That depends, in part, on
how one frames the aims or goals of education. Thus, defining the ends of
education is perhaps the first step in reflecting on teaching. But who
determines these ends, and on what authority or with what justification?
One approach is to articulate a consensus on a set of goals that all teachers
might share in common. But there can be healthy disagreement about what
constitutes a good education and thus what characterizes good teaching.
For example, are we training students for better-paying jobs, or are we
educating them in a more classical, liberal arts sense? Is the ideal product a
skilled technician or a reflective thinker, or necessarily a combination of
both? What should be the product of our educational efforts? A model for
our approach to establishing standards might well come from other realms
of academic discourse and the tradition of academic freedom. One
dimension of academic freedom is the privilege and responsibility (both) of
defining or characterizing one's position on the goals of education. Hence,
the starting point for anyone assessing his or her teaching through a
portfolio is to characterize its ends in a statement of teaching philosophy.
By considering educational philosophy fully, teaching becomes grounded
in a purpose deeper than what might be described, more plainly, as one's
teaching responsibilities. Here, the goal of developing a description of one's
philosophy or pedagogical goals is a movement towards more meaningful
teaching. It is an essential tool for clarifying one's actions, and the roles
and responsibilities that one adopts. At the same time, the scope of
education is appropriately broadened beyond mere classroom encounters.
One can more easily see mentoring, research guidance, extracurricular
forums, etc., as integral components of education. Teaching need not be
equated with "courses taught."
Documentation and Interpretation
One aim of a portfolio, then, is to document one's teaching. This means
collecting and assembling various forms of relevant information or
evidence. One can be imaginative about sources -- even creating new tools
(as in any research) to collect information that may be helpful.
Lee Shulman (1988
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
As any academic knows, however, evidence does not speak for itself.
Hence, any volume of material -- no matter how vast or impressive -- needs
interpretation. One needs to reduce the raw data, note patterns, synthesize
divergent sources of information, highlight significant features, etc.
• 10 •
Format
The format of a portfolio may vary considerably. For a portfolio to be
effective, though, it must be informative and well organized. The American
Association for Higher Education (AAHE) suggests that a teaching
portfolio should be:

structured

representative

selective
These are addressed further in the sections below.
Structure
Consider how a portfolio can communicate important traits through its
organization, creativity, thoroughness and neatness. Again, assembling
a portfolio is a creative act and expresses the author's abilities and style.
In an administrative context, a portfolio document becomes more valuable
(or perhaps more efficient) if there are clear expectations or frameworks
that can serve as a structure or scaffolding for building a portfolio. At
UTEP, we are just beginning to discuss and characterize these categories in
the context of our institution. We encourage you to contribute to the
discussion. At present, this site is organized under three broad categories:
1. PROFESSIONAL REFLECTION -- includes teaching philosophy, methods
and scope of responsibilities adopted -- crudely, why and how you teach.
2. EVIDENCE (OR FEEDBACK) -- includes the familiar student course
evaluations, but also other forms of student
feedback, information from peers and others, along
with an analysis of products of teaching -- largely a
retrospective analysis of your effectiveness, given
your own goals.
3.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT -- includes
evidence of professional growth, expansion of
teaching resources and future plans -- largely a
prospective view of your plans and continued
potential for growth.
• 11 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Scope: Selective or Exhaustive?
Particularly where one aims to document one's achievement in teaching, the
initial tendency is often to be exhaustive -- to document everything, lest
some important element be omitted. On the other hand, if a portfolio is to
be read -- either by a peer or an administrator -- it must be readable. While
being comprehensive, it must also be concise. A portfolio is not an archive,
though it may be built from one and refer to it. As artists, photographers
and architects know, a portfolio is selective.
Consider, for example, a familiar academic document: the grant proposal.
In this case, a vast amount of information must be concentrated and
presently cogently and persuasively in a limited amount of pages that can
be reviewed effectively. Where appropriate, of course, well organized
appendices may provide supplemental information or evidence. When the
portfolio serves as a vehicle for decision regarding tenure or promotion, it
becomes an argumentative device, much like many scholarly papers. All
information should be meaningfully interpreted and relevant. Authors may
reflect on how their argument and evidence are consolidated or well
focused--and how their skills in assembling a portfolio themselves reflect
on their skills in assembling and presenting evidence.
In research publications, it is customary not to cite failures. Hence, by
analogy, one may well refrain from profiling in a portfolio the areas where
teaching skills are underdeveloped or need improvement. Whether a
portfolio should be selective by showing only one's best work (see also
"Representativeness" below), however, is still a subject of debate.
Occasional failures may reflect a spirit of innovation and can be viewed
positively if they lead to subsequent improvement or reflection on goals for
professional development.
Concrete recommendations on length vary considerably across different
institutions. Texas A&M University and Seldin (1997), for example,
suggest limiting a portfolio to ten pages based on experience (well, would
you want to read more than that?). Here, we will assume that different
individuals, even at the same institution (colleague, departmental teaching
committee, department chair, dean, provost), will likely be inclined to read
the same portfolio at varying levels of depth. Hence, the portfolio might
be designed in layers to accommodate different readers -- as a document
whose length expands or contracts, depending on the reader. Alternatively,
a base portfolio might be organized flexibly or in modules that can be
adapted and re-assembled to suit given circumstances.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 12 •
Scope: Representativeness
While a portfolio as a portfolio must be selective, it must usually be
comprehensive, as well. Its scope must reflect achievement or work as
wide as one's responsibilities. Hence, one should address an effective crosssection of one's teaching, not merely a "selective" glimpse of a specialized
subsection of one's work.
A portfolio may be an occasion to celebrate past achievements. On such
occasions, a focus on one's most outstanding accomplishments may be
appropriate. At other times, the focus may be on demonstrating potential
for the future, or on sharing one's achievements for others to apply. In these
circumstances, the emphasis may be on general skills, strategies or habits.
That is, one might strive towards addressing patterns of skills or
behavior, not the exceptional episodes. Again, this may require the
creative synthesis of material.
On-Going Process
One aim of a portfolio is to promote reflective practice in teaching. Thus,
the product of that thinking will itself be constantly changing. One should
expect to add to and revise one's portfolio on a regular basis. Having a file
for collecting material to review periodically is one way to ensure that the
portfolio becomes a process, not just an idle snapshot. A recent AAHE
document proposes, in fact, that "reflective practice and improvement
should be a part of what we mean by (and evaluate and reward in) good
teaching."
Guidance: Standards and Samples
Consider once again the artist's portfolio. It may follow certain patterns of
content and format, but there are no rules set in stone. Therefore, while this
document characterizes what a portfolio might be, it is only a guide. What
common standards or frameworks will apply at UTEP will ultimately result
only from faculty discussion on evaluating teaching.
One source of guidance is through exemplars. One develops understanding
through viewing other people's work and participating in the process. We
have assembled links to some samples online.
A separate section on this site considers how we might begin Reviewing
and Evaluating Portfolios.
• 13 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Finally, note that our collective vision of portfolios (at UTEP and in the
Academy, more broadly), like the individual portfolios themselves, will
likely evolve.
This section taken from http://
sunconference.utep.edu/CETaL/
resources/portfolios/stages.htm (used
with permission of University of Texas at
El Paso). We thank Harry Meeuwsen for
this permission.
If a teaching portfolio is mandated by circumstance, how does one make
the project one's own, more personally fruitful? Teaching is a form of
scholarship and it is creative--and documenting and sharing that work
through a portfolio should be rewarding and self-affirming and equally
creative. Remember that many people who start the process of building a
portfolio somewhat blindly often find it more valuable for themselves than
they originally imagined. Overall, you need to get your teaching down on
paper--why and how you do it and how effective it is by the standards you
set. Remember that teaming with a colleague may make it easier--and more
intellectually rewarding.
First
Clarify, even if in crude terms, why you are embarking on this task, who
your reader will be, and what you hope to communicate. Basically, remind
yourself why you are doing this, and therefore what kind of portfolio you
are creating. A little fuzzy here? Then sort through the description of
teaching portfolios, their varied roles and benefits--and perhaps browse
through a few sample portfolios, or talk with colleagues--as a way to spark
your thinking.
Second
Reflect on why you teach, what you hope to accomplish with students, how
you conceive teaching and how you organize your courses (to the extent
that you do) to reach your aims. In no time, you will have drafted your
Statement of Teaching Philosophy, the foundation of your portfolio. There
are many possible exercises available to prompt and clarify your thoughts
here. If appropriate, narrow your focus to one course; the rest can come
later. This initial task is often the most valuable, as it allows you to
recognize and highlight the worth in what you are doing and to clarify your
personal goals. Teachers often enjoy rewriting and deepening their
statements of philosophy as they mature through their teaching career.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 14 •
Next
Take a deep breath. You now need to subject yourself to some serious selfevaluation. To what degree are you reaching your goals? How effective are
you? Sound slightly scary? Fear of exposing weaknesses is typical. Press
onwards. Be honest with yourself and be authentic to your goals.
Enlist the support of your students and your peers. Get the information
from them that will help you know if you are doing a good job--and that
will allow you to document your achievement. The simplest forms are:
compose a probative course evaluation (both


semester-end, as a summary, and

mid-term, as a formative tool)
invite a peer to visit and comment on your class
Perhaps you already have some of this information saved in a file. If not,
you should probably open a file for collecting evidence as it appears.
Thinking through your philosophy and the evidence you need may help you
become more sensitive to recognizing and holding onto bits of relevant
information, and even to finding opportunities for collecting information.
Scan the possibilities of forms of evidence to help keep your mind open
here.

Finally
Sit down with all this information and process it. What does it mean to
you? What information can you add from your own perspective? How does
this information help you reshape your short-term objectives, guide a
revision in your teaching methods, or inspire you to search for new
strategies? Interpret the data and synthesize it (as you would for any form
of scholarly activity) and present it coherently in your written portfolio.
Congratulations, you now have a document ready to share with others.
Looking Ahead...
Begin to think about ways to develop your teaching and to document your
growth and improvement (see Professional Development).
To summarize, the "Getting Started" map is:
Getting Started
Teaching Philosophy
• 15 •


feedback from students (course evals.)
feedback from peers (classroom visit)


interpret & summarize
self-evaluation
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
To summarize, the "Developing an Emerging Portfolio" map is:
Developing an Emerging Portfolio

teaching philosophy
& methodology <=======> || as
seen in specific practices
more information (depth)
 different forms of
information (robustness)

learn, explore, experiment, and
develop new strategies
self-analysis (video?)
(Stage 3 on portfolios for tenure review has
been removed here, as it was less relevant to
our situation in New Zealand)
This section has some good suggestions that
you could use to support your ‘service’
requirements for promotion.
So, your professional status is secure. And your teaching is fine by many
standards. What's next? Personal growth certainly doesn't stop. In
particular, as teachers become good teachers, then veteran good teachers,
they are ready to share their expertise with others (see Hutchings, 1996).
Professional development in education blurs into professional service.
Consider "archiving" effective teaching in specific course portfolios as a
legacy for other teachers (Hutchings, 1996, Chap. 5). Be attentive to noting
the kinds of details that guide teachers, not just the description of the
course. Distill your best practice.
Consider ways to mentor other teachers, not just your research students.
Collaborate with peers in course development. Adopt leadership positions.
Show that you are "keeping up with" developments in teaching and
pedagogy and integrating them into your teaching. Follow through on longterm evaluation of students -- from outstanding to mediocre students.
3 November
9.00-10.30 Professional Goal Setting for Managers
4 November
9.00-12.00 Effective Meetings
12 November
10.30-12.00 Introduction to Video, Audio and Desktop Capture—Recording Material for
Teaching and Learning and iTunesU
1 December
9.00–10.30 Professional Goal Setting for Managers
8 December
9.00–12.00 Dealing with People More Effectively
Contact Mike Bell ([email protected]) for details. Book through iWaikato (My Work > Staff Development > Coming Events)
• 16 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Stages 1 & 2 of Portfolio Development
Stage #1
Stage #2
Philosophy
write
refine w/ practice
Feedback from Students
course evaluations
detailed analysis
Feedback from Peers
classroom visits
syllabi review & dialogue
Self
self-analysis
shaping goals
Other Feedback
----
collect products of teaching
Professional Development
----
experimentation, workshops
General
assemble basics
robustness & depth of evidence; prof.
Stages 3 & 4 of Portfolio Development
Stage #3
Stage #4
Philosophy
articulate
share
Feedback from Students
habits of formative evaluation
long-term follow-up
Feedback from Peers
letters +
collaboration
Self
articulating style, synthesis w/
research & service
distillation of best practice
Other Feedback
analyze products of teaching
course portfolios
Professional Development
habits of development
leadership, publications
General
patterns of behavior
sharing with junior peers
Bibliography
Make a space at your
place for teaching
Some of the best learning happens
through conversation and most of the
working life of academics is focused
around the department. So why not
make the occasional space for
conversation about teaching in your
department?
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
John Zubizarreta. 1997. "Improving Teaching through Portfolio Revisions."
Pp. 37-45 in P. Seldin (ed.), The Teaching Portfolio, 2d ed, Bolton MA: Anker
Publishing.
Peter Seldin and John Zubizarreta. 1997. "Key Points in Revising a Portfolio."
Pp. 255-63 in P. Seldin (ed.), The Teaching Portfolio, 2d ed, Bolton MA:
Anker Publishing.
Hutchings, Pat. 1996. Making Teaching Community Property. Washington
DC: AAHE. -- See esp. Chap. 3 on "Mentoring."
• 17 •
Once secure in having a simple teaching portfolio to submit for evaluation,
your next task is more subtle. You want to collect evidence that is deeper
and more robust (from various independent sources)--and more personally
informative. In addition, you want to build a habit of reflecting on and
improving your teaching--and to document your ability to develop
professionally and to grow. For example, now is the time to begin
experimenting a bit, building on what works. This is also the stage to
consider videotaping your class and analyzing it with someone who has
some experience to help you notice things and consider how to amplify
your strengths and to explore alternatives where weaknesses appear.
Robustness of Evidence
Any scholar knows the importance of a diversity of independent evidence.
Consider, then, the various forms of evidence that might reflect on your
teaching -- from pre-/post-test measures to letters from students and peer
review of syllabi. How might you best profile your strengths or style as a
teacher? Look beyond student evaluations and peer visitation to get
feedback and to document your teaching achievements.
Depth of Evidence
Review again the various forms of evidence and consider where more
detailed, specific or systematic information would be helpful. Are there
trends in your student evaluations across several semesters? Have you
addressed specific weaknesses revealed by previous assessments? Have
you initiated regular dialogue with your peers? etc.
Evidence of Professional Development
Consider that a central dimension of a good teacher is an effort to become a
better teacher. Professional development is key to long-term success and
personal reward. Maybe develop a partnership with another teacher for
discussing teaching strategies and problems, enhanced by mutual
familiarity.
Teaching Philosophy & Methodology Reconsidered
Wading through all this information may well elicit new thoughts regarding
the aims and methods of teaching. The portfolio is a living document, and
you should take the opportunity to update these sections. With further
work, you may also be better able to articulate the relationship between
your general philosophy and specific practices--add that, too.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 18 •
This method, Retrospectives, was recommended by Computing and
Mathematical Sciences lecturer Angela Martin’s Dean, Geoff Holmes, who
co-teaches with Angela on a paper. Interviews were held with both Angela
and two of her students, Gabe Young and Laura Bocock, to provide a
‘rounded’ view of the method. Gabe and Laura are both happy to be
named.
This process is one that Angela regularly uses both in her teaching at the
University of Oxford, U.K., and with her students here at the University of
Waikato. It‟s an interactive, flexible method of getting student feedback on
how the course has gone, and what ideas they may have for improvement.
When she introduces the process to students by sending a Moodle posting
in advance, Angela writes:
“In the movie Dances with Wolves, a tribe of native Americans celebrates
the success of a buffalo hunt by telling and retelling the story of the hunt
over a campfire. Telling the story is a very important ritual because it
provides a lesson for all of the hunts to come. It is the way wisdom is
passed on [story from Norman Kerth, see footnote below].
In the software engineering field, a retrospective works
much the same way – its purpose is to help you review
your most recent project (or in this case University
course), in order to understand what happened, what
worked well, and what to do differently next time. It is
not an activity of finding fault with anyone, but rather
an activity for learning from our experiences.
To have gotten to this point in the course, you have
expended a great deal of effort and made many
sacrifices. In a sense, the effort and sacrifice are the
tuition (along with the actual $) that you paid. Now the
question is, What did you learn? Learning is what this retrospective is all
about: It is about improving your practice by reflecting on your recent
experiences. Hence I have coupled this lecture with the exam preparation
aspect of the course.
Kerth, N. (2001)Project Retrospectives: A
Handbook for Team Reviews. New York:
Dorset House Publishing
• 19 •
During the retrospective, we will review the entire course from many
different perspectives, using as much factual information as can be
discovered. The review is much like an archaeological research project in
that we want to learn and remember, in part, by collecting and analyzing
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
“artefacts” from the project. By artefacts, I mean memos, meeting notes,
old schedules, calendars, papers you read/researched, plans, personas, story
cards, notebooks, notice boards, coffee machines, the recycle pile and so
forth. Artefacts can be anything that will remind you of what happened
during the course and when it happened.
During the lecture tomorrow we will analyze the artefacts to construct a
time line of important events. I'll also be resorting to a little bribery (as I
know you have a lot on at the moment) ... so there will be prizes given for:
(a) the most artefacts collected and
(b) the most creative or unusual artefact
Please take a moment to do a little artefact dig ...”
Gabe Young
Norman Kerth initially used this as a 2 -3 day offsite workshop to look at
what had happened in a project, in a business context. As the brain tends to
recall best the „emotional‟ things, or what has happened in the last little
while, the retrospective process enables participants to „fill in‟ gaps in their
own memories about what had happened during a project. They are
encouraged to bring in artefacts of some type that encapsulate for them, a
learning or event from the project. As mentioned above, Angela now uses
this artefact process to have students reflect on a course – they have
brought objects such as a hat, soft toy, chocolate bar wrappers – that reflect
something that they had done or learned on the course. “It‟s really just
about jogging people‟s memories,” said Angela. Once the artefacts are
gathered and reported on, the memories are recorded on glue-sprayed index
cards or post-it notes, then grouped on the sticky wall according to themes,
such as things that went well, things that didn‟t go so well, things that are
unanswered questions or still puzzling. In industry, this was done at the end
of projects, capturing all the little steps that were used to achieve the goal.
What teams are doing in industry now is to evaluate a stage of a project has
been completed, looking back and reflecting on both process and products.
“It is not about blame or finger-pointing, we accept that people did the best
they could.” In Angela‟s work at Oxford University, she encourages
students to think of two aspects of the course that they‟d like to change.
She was asked, at Oxford, to design a course using action methods, in
which she uses the retrospectives model. She will be teaching there three
times this year.
The interviewer asked if this method can be used effectively to gather
evidence of good teaching, for instance at the end of a course, to show how
effectively teacher and students have worked together. Angela indicated
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 20 •
that she does this at Oxford, though there she has a very skilled facilitator
who helps with the process, and she hasn‟t used a facilitator here. There,
the students have to have a solid work background to be admitted to the
course, and continue to work. They come to Oxford for a week‟s module
from 9 – 6 each day, and Angela teaches the lot. On the last day there‟s a
retrospective using the sticky wall. The facilitator comes in at the end of the
final day and spends half an hour explaining how retrospectives work (part
of the course content, in this case, so not „extraneous‟ to the course). The
best way to learn about retrospectives is to give it a go. The neutral
facilitator makes a safe space where students can say what they like. The
process can work with up to 40 students. The facilitator gets them to build
a timeline about what has happened during the course, then helps them to
work out what happened (using index-sized post-it notes to record the
process, in this case one colour for good, another for bad, one colour for
puzzling). Students are asked to come up with three or four things in each
category, then come up and place their notes individually (see picture
below).
These are then assembled on the appropriate place of the timeline. It takes
about ten to fifteen minutes, then the facilitator „walks through‟ what s/he
sees, asking for comments and discussion. The facilitator doesn‟t add any
post-its him/herself or record the process, though s/he records actions
decided on at the end of the process. But at this point they‟re recording the
story, and looking for what happened well, or needed improving. There are
few formal rules apart from basic notions of courtesy, such as talking from
your own experience. The timeline is then removed, and the group look to
see if there is another way of grouping the post-it notes.
From the last retrospective done in Oxford, the students
identified that the course is well structured as it is, but
there was a lot of interest in going deeper, so a further
course might be advisable. Not all the feedback is
positive. “There‟s always one lecture I give that gets
negative feedback, and I‟m trying to find a way to
improve it.” If the course should be changed the next
time it is run, students are asked to suggest the key
actions that need to be taken to gain improvement.
At the University of Waikato, Angela does
retrospectives only for a course that she teaches alone,
plus the one that she co-teaches with her Dean. She
• 21 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
finds it harder doing them here, when she needs to facilitate for herself. She
said it‟s sometimes heartbreaking to get negative feedback on teaching,
knowing how hard she has worked to improve, but at the same time really
wants to get that feedback to improve things for her students. Reflecting on
the most recent retrospective, Angela encouraged students to give both
positive and change feedback, using rewards such as movie tickets to
reinforce both kinds of feedback on occasion. Chippies and chocolate
could be selected by everyone who came, as it was an unscheduled lecture
period and students were not obliged to attend; a student was nominated to
dispense prizes, and was asked to give one to the first person who made a
negative comment. This was a conscious attempt to show students that
Angela was open to critical feedback. Despite trying to monitor her practice
carefully as the course progressed, this feedback process sometimes
revealed surprises. “There was one third-year student who really hated the
course, and I didn‟t know that until I got the feedback.”
Year Two students from the
University of Waikato course
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Asked if there was any „loop closing‟ so that subsequent
cohorts of students knew what had changed because of
the retrospectives feedback for the previous class,
Angela said she talks about what had changed in the
previous year, at retrospectives time for the next class,
but not earlier. One of the advantages of the
retrospectives system was the identification of the two
key things that students would like changed. If an
external facilitator is used, it is important to have
someone with whom the lecturer feels safe, knowing
that their teaching may receive negative comment. “But
I think they really appreciated how much I valued their
feedback on the course.” In her last retrospective,
having only an hour for the process, Angela left out the timeline aspect, but
still got very good feedback on the aspects that went well and what needed
changing. She felt that students were really „adult‟ about what could be
changed, and what couldn‟t. For instance, one assessment exercise was
moved at the students‟ request. “It was something that we wouldn‟t have
thought of; it was just a minor tweak but it had real meaning for them.” The
students had practical suggestions about labs and reformatting...”they really
enjoyed being involved.”
• 22 •
And what did her students think of the process?
Gabe reported that in his second-year class, Angela‟s classes were very
interactive. In his previous experience he had filled out standard appraisals
in the written form. But Angela asked all students to come to the front, fill
out reactions on post-it notes on all aspects of the course, and place them
into good and bad aspects. After all had put their post-its up, there was a
discussion. Gabe said lots of people had the same ideas about how it went,
but he hadn‟t realised how much some people had been struggling but
getting one on one help from Angela – he hadn‟t needed that. Students got
to brainstorm how to improve aspects of the class that hadn‟t gone so well.
“We managed to come up with some good ideas on how to improve the
negatives, but we also suggested ways to improve the positives.”
It was the first time in his university career that he had been asked to
evaluate a course in this way. “It was about a thousand times better than the
standard way of evaluating, and I think it will have a lot of benefit for the
same class next year.” The session was held on the last day of term but
there was quite a good turnout, perhaps two thirds of the class. The session
didn‟t feel compulsory, and the rewards didn‟t feel like „primary school
stuff.‟ In a different, formative evaluation method, Angela had always used
an ongoing evaluation system as well, on a lecture-by-lecture basis. There
was a box at the back of the room, and a pile of cards – red, green or yellow
– and after many lecture students could put in a green card if it went well
for them, a yellow one if neutral, and a red one if bad. This system was
used for many lectures, particularly if Angela was trying something
different or interactive. Students didn‟t write on the cards, just placed them
in the box as they went past if they wished, but the cards would
immediately let Angela know the class feelings about how a lecture had
gone. “She seems to take quite a lot of it in; she seeks to know what the
students thought about it. It‟s very good, very open.”
In one lecture, Gabe‟s class was asked to make a „coffee machine‟ out of
random articles that were around the class. According to Gabe, a lot of
computer students are quite shy, and Angela tried very hard to get them
involved, and this kind of activity, based on feedback, could help her to
reshape activities to better appeal to all students, including the shy ones.
He said Angela reflects on her teaching, both here and in Oxford, and
shares with students how she has changed her practice based on student
feedback. Asked if the time frame for gathering the data had been a
nuisance for the students, Gabe said although it took the full hour, they
wouldn‟t have been doing much in that last lecture anyway. The process
was completely safe; all assignments had been done, so there were no fears
• 23 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
that the students could be „marked down‟ on assignments following
negative comments that they might make in the retrospectives exercise.
While Gabe said Angela was present throughout the discussion, if students
brought up something that went wrong and there was a reason why it
happened in such a way, Angela could explain – without being defensive.
“She never took a defensive stance the whole time; it was „I‟m here to
change the paper for next year, so all the feedback you give me I can use to
improve the paper for next year.‟ She‟s a very good lecturer.”
Laura, a third year student, described the process as good, but different. She
described the usual written appraisal system that had been used to evaluate
all previous university courses she‟d done. But Angela asked the students
to bring in „artefacts‟ that summarised aspects of the course for them.
Laura brought in a teddy bear, among other artefacts, and students then
spoke of why their artefacts were relevant to their course. This process
helped Laura to recall parts of the course that she had forgotten.
Interestingly, she found it really helpful to her in studying for her exam.
She hadn‟t shared this insight with Angela, but it was a real benefit to
Laura. “I found that the more we as students shared what we had done, you
remember something really important through the ways that students
shared. It was just so much fun.” The process took one lecture; they were
forewarned about the need to bring in things a couple of lectures
beforehand. Attendance was no more compulsory than with other lectures –
“her lectures are good, you want to come.” Once the sharing of artefacts
had occurred, a timeline was set up and post-its were used to capture
memories and learning, and moved as appropriate. “It became
huge – it was so much fun, it was really cool! Everybody
got involved. Everybody had something that they
remembered.” Asked if she would recommend this as a way
of giving a teacher feedback, Laura said it would be good to
help a teacher know what parts of their practice were fun,
and what were boring. A session that a teacher might
have thought would be quite memorable, if it didn‟t
come up from the students, would be grist for revisiting
by the teacher in order to improve it. They could reflect,
“Maybe I didn‟t go over that quite as well.”
The process felt safe for students. “No-one felt that they
couldn‟t give their opinion on something.” It was fine to say
negative things about sessions. The open environment made that possible
– the entire process of the course had helped that. “Angela is a very open
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 24 •
lecturer anyway. If you didn‟t get something, you could go to her privately;
if your group wasn‟t working well you could let her know, and that was
fine.” Laura said Angela was more participating than running the session,
and was very open to any kind of discussion, without defensiveness. “I
remember one session, she had us creating coffee machines. And one
student said that just blew them away. A lot of us, being computer science
students, had never had a lecture that was interactive like that. So that
threw a lot of people to start with, and that came out at the end. But that‟s
not negative...there was no negativity around any of the sessions.”
Angela shared with students aspects of her practice that she had changed as
a result of past student feedback, or did differently because she hadn‟t been
well taught at times in her past, herself. Laura also spoke of a peer
assessment/feedback process that Angela encourages in her classes. This
was not an unsafe process – students could vote to participate or not, and
Laura felt that getting feedback on how you come across and how you
work, is important information for future employment. Self-assessment was
seen as a vital part of the course, “and it‟s all in the way she explains it, it‟s
not like you‟re going to get negative feedback...‟If you were receiving the
feedback, how would you like to get it? Would you think it was important
for you to know that?‟ And it is. You know that she‟s done it before, and
had it done to her, she creates that kind of environment in her lectures, so it
wasn‟t a shock when it was done to us.”
Asked about ways of evaluating courses, Laura said that the retrospective
was the most radical way of evaluating a course that she had yet
encountered. She fills out standard evaluations in other courses, but “I
don‟t really connect with it.” She would prefer to answer questions like,
“Was the course fun? Did you get enough out of the course that you would
use in industry or beyond university life?” Laura felt that overall, the
teaching she has experienced at the University of Waikato is good. “The
teachers are good; they know their stuff; the university wouldn‟t have
employed them if they didn‟t.”
4 November
1.00-3.00
Moodle One: Getting Started with Resources
11 November
1.00-3.00
Moodle Two: Paper Settings & Communication
18 November
1.00-3.00
Moodle Three: Assessment Tools in Moodle
25 November
1.00-3.00
Moodle Four: Groups and Groupings
Book through iWaikato (My Work > Staff Development > Coming Events)
• 25 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer
This process for gaining student feedback was introduced to the Staff
Development team at the Waikato Polytechnic in the 1990s, and used
extensively thereafter to gain student feedback on courses while they were
still running. The process was used both formatively (by staff wanting to
check the effectiveness of their practice and amend it if necessary, with a
given cohort of students) and summatively (by the institution, as part of the
regular evaluation of teaching, programmes and courses.
An American educator, Dr Jody Nyquist, taught us the method, which we
subsequently adapted for local use. It is still in use in the U.S. and can be
examined from the website http://www.wpacouncil.org/archives/28n12/28n1-2bowden.pdf (a 2004 paper by Darsie Bowden). The way we used
it at TWP had the same questions and largely the same process, whether
used for formative or summative purposes. Obviously, we made the
students aware of whether it was being done for information to the teacher,
or for quality assurance purposes for the institution, so that they knew who
had instigated the process and who might have access to the results.
A member of the Professional Development Unit went to the classroom at a
pre-arranged time, for a one hour process. The staff member introduced the
PDU member, and left. We then asked the students three questions: what
helps your learning on this course, what hinders your learning on this
course, and what suggestions do you have for improvement? After some
experience with the process, we had refined the method so that students
answered these questions in writing on their own for ten minutes. (This was
done to ensure that the process was not immediately taken over by vocal
students in a group situation). We then called time on the individual
responses, arranged the students into groups of 4 – 6, and
requested them to try and reach consensus on the key points,
after each member had read their answers. This part usually
took around 30 minutes, and the responses were recorded on
large sheets of paper. Finally, the large sheets of paper were
blu-tacked to the board (one per question, per group) while
the PDU person sought consensus from the whole group
about answers to each question. This took the rest of the
hour, and often stimulated lively discussion as groups argued
about the fairness or otherwise of points raised. Students
were thanked, told they‟d get a final look at the questions
once the sheets were compiled, and the PDU member left.
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 26 •
Several days later, we‟d go back to the same group of students and present
the collated results, seeking confirmation or otherwise of the issues
identified. This was done because sometimes students could get a little
carried away with some of the points they brought up, and with hindsight
felt these had been either unfair, or they‟d had subsequent discussion and
felt there were more points that should have been added (these were usually
positive). If all the students agreed to change, then the collation would be
changed. Otherwise a „minority opinion‟ could be recorded on this later
stage of data collection.
Our experience with this method was that students really liked the
opportunity to share perceptions of how their study was going, in a
particular course. Where staff had instigated the process for formative
purposes, students appreciated the opportunity to give anonymous feedback
– both positive and change-oriented – to their lecturers. Staff could refer to
these reports, if they wished, to support performance appraisal meetings or
promotions applications. Where it was done for quality assurance purposes,
both the lecturer and his/her programme manager saw the results, but
names of staff were „anonymised‟ for the formal recording of results at
programme evaluation level.
The method obviously works best where there are not large numbers of
students. Any more than 40 would be difficult. But the Teaching
Development Unit is happy to arrange an SGID for staff wishing to use the
method for formative purposes if wished. The usual ethical processes
would apply – results would be confidential to the lecturer asking for the
process to be done, unless used for subsequent appraisal/promotion
purposes by that staff member.
27 October
29 October
3 November
10.00-12.00 ICT Induction for New Staff
8.45-12.20 Introductory Session for New Staff
8.45-4.30 Kanohi ki te Kanohi
Contact Mike Bell ([email protected]) for details. Book through iWaikato (My Work > Staff Development > Coming Events)
24 November
9 December
10.00-12.00 ICT Induction for New Staff
8.45-12.20 Introductory Session for New Staff
Contact Mike Bell ([email protected]) for details. Book through iWaikato (My Work > Staff Development > Coming Events)
• 27 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching Developer
In many educational institutions, from primary schools through to
universities, it is common practice for teachers to invite peers into their
classes to provide feedback on teaching methods, or to share discussion of
alternative ways of presenting information to students. In many certificated
programmes for teaching (e.g. Certificate in Adult Learning and Teaching,
Wintec) such observations are a required part of the programme‟s learning,
with reflections on the observation notes by the staff member being
observed, contributing to the assessable outcomes. But many staff seek
observations purely for their own purposes, outside certificated courses, in
order to „get a reality check‟ or to improve their practice. As Robbie Burns
said, “O wad some power the Giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us; it
wud frae mony a blunder free us, and foolish notion.” 1
1
“To a Louse” (yes, really! Burns was watching
a beastie crawling across the back of an
elegantly-dressed woman’s bonnet in church –
must have been a boring sermon!
TDU members are also available to conduct focus groups with
students (Dr Trudy Harris regularly does this as part of her appraisals
service) or we can visit your classrooms or tutorials and provide
verbal and/or written feedback on your teaching. We have had staff,
following this kind of feedback, express appreciation for indepth
comments on such things as teaching techniques, questioning, group
facilitation and media usage. One staff member said to one of the
TDU staff, following an observation at which extensive notes were
provided in the follow-up discussion, “I didn‟t realise how expert I
had become until I read your observation notes.” What can seem just like
„normal practice‟ to you, may be the kind of practice that is deserving of
praise, or of a wider audience should you choose to share it. You may also
benefit from being given some alternative ways of presenting information
or conducting classes that you may not have considered beforehand.
Whether you are new here, or are feeling the need for injection of new
ideas, consider having an observation done – or perhaps book in for the
“Maximising Learning in Large Groups” workshop run by TDU several
times a year, in which experienced staff share glimpses of their practice.
Contact Preetha Pratapsingh ([email protected]) or book through iWaikato (My Work > Staff Development > Coming Events)
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
• 28 •
afterword...
Dorothy Spiller, Senior Lecturer
The focus of this issue on ways of documenting one‟s teaching is an
important aspect of developing a culture which accords teaching equal
status with research. While academia has well recognised processes for
recognising quality research, it is far more difficult to find broadly
acceptable ways of documenting and celebrating good teaching. This
edition of TDU Talk highlights the use of the portfolio for documenting
one‟s process as a teacher and also indicates the range of sources that we
can draw on to get feedback about one‟s teaching. These include ongoing
formative feedback from one‟s peers and from one‟s students as illustrated
in the case study of the practices used by Angela Martin.
As this issue suggests, while we need evidence of our teaching quality for
institutional and career purposes and to submit our teaching to scrutiny for
audit or awards, we also need to get ongoing feedback on our teaching from
a range of sources for the purposes of ongoing development and
improvement. Ultimately, the most important and convincing evidence of
our teaching is improvement in the quality of our students‟ learning. This is
why we stress the importance of reflective practice in which we are
continually subjecting our teaching to evaluation and making the
appropriate modifications.
According to Brookfield (1995) we can draw on four key sources to inform
our reflections on practice. All of these have been mentioned in this edition,
particularly in relation to teaching portfolios. These four sources are our
own experience, our students, our peers and the scholarship of teaching and
learning. I would like to expand a little on each of these as a way of
consolidating some of the ideas addressed in this issue. Furthermore, it
should be noted that none of these lenses provide an adequate perspective,
but should work together to give a more comprehensive picture of the
teaching and learning experience.
• 29 •
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
Consulting our own experience as learners
One of the biggest challenges for academic discipline specialists is to recall
what it is like to be a novice learner in their subject. This makes it very
difficult for academics to empathise with the anxieties and uncertainties of
beginner learners and to communicate in ways which are in touch with the
learners‟ needs. Correspondingly, many university learning spaces are
characterised by a gap between teacher understanding and expectations and
the learners‟ experiences. Ongoing formative feedback from students, as
per the examples in this issue, is a key way for teachers to keep tabs on the
students‟ experiences of the learning and modify their approach
accordingly. Additionally, Brookfield (1995) argues that teachers can
empathise more effectively with their students, by regularly consulting their
own experiences when they are in the position of a learner. Thus, for
example, Brookfield suggests that academics should think about the
affective and intellectual quality of their learning experiences when they
attend conferences, workshops, seminars, public lectures and professional
development programmes. Ideally, they should record these reflections in a
journal and revisit their teaching in the light of these observations. A
personal example of this has been recognising how fidgety and distracted I
become, when I have to listen to a presentation for a long period of time
without opportunity for participation or a shift in the activity. Similarly, I
notice how frustrated I become when presenters don‟t signpost where they
are heading and this has been a very helpful reminder to me as I know that I
sometimes forget to do this in my own practice. Beyond these work-related
opportunities, Brookfield suggests that one of the best forms of
professional development is to regularly learn something completely new.
This process can give us fresh and immediate insights into the complex and
uneven terrain of learning new ideas or skills and consequently help us to
be more attuned to the struggles experienced by our students.
One of the most useful prompts for ongoing reflection on teaching is
keeping a teaching diary. Jotting down observations about positive or
negative classroom moments or insights into students‟ learning can provide
the basis for subsequent reflection, investigation and improvements. These
personal observations work best when linked to other sources of
information such that from students through quick classroom exercises or
focus groups, peer observation or discussion or consulting the scholarship
on teaching.
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Feedback from students
This issue has provided a number of examples of simple ways of getting
ongoing formative feedback from students about their experience of their
learning. Angelo and Cross (1993) outline many other examples of in-class
activities that you can use to develop a climate of dialogue in the classroom
and be responsive to students‟ learning progress. On-line learning also
provides an excellent means for complementing and extending classroom
learning and keeping in touch with students‟ learning. For example, a
simple compulsory on-line quiz can give both lecturer and students
immediate access to students‟ grasp of course learning. On-line or paper
reflection journals can also help students to articulate their understanding
and provide feedback to the lecturer on students‟ progress.
Of course, assessment tasks provide a critical indicator of our students‟
learning progress, but often they reveal problems in students‟
understanding too late in the teaching process. Small formative
assessment tasks that align closely with paper learning outcomes allow
lecturers to evaluate the quality of students‟ engagement with their
learning and provide feedback and coaching which will enable students
to align their work more closely with learning outcomes.
Finally, we need to be alert to our students in all our encounters with
them, noticing their behaviours, comments and quality of their participation
and keep a record of anything that captures our attention. When we are
perplexed or uncertain about what we uncover, we can always turn to other
sources such as our peers, TDU staff members or the research, to help us
shed light on what is happening and modify our practice.
Feedback from peers
As Brookfield (1995) observes, there are some aspects of our practice that
we just can‟t see for ourselves, and our peers can be a valuable resource in
our professional development. This issue has suggested the usefulness of
having peers observe you at work and sitting in on other academics‟
classes. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable about observers in their
classroom and we suggest that if you would like to establish peer
observation as a norm in your department, that you work with the TDU to
establish protocols around the process. As has been noted, TDU staff
members are happy to observe your teaching and provide you with
feedback on our perspectives. Following a suggestion at the recent
Teaching Network meeting, the TDU will be offering a workshop on
conducting peer observations of teaching, in our programme for 2010.
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OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
In addition to these specific peer feedback opportunities, we encourage you
to create opportunities in your departmental agenda for peer conversations
about different aspects of teaching and learning. Often, people have
common experiences and we can help each other enlarge the resource kit
we draw on in our practice. Some people may also enjoy the experience of
team teaching or co-teaching a paper or a segment of a paper. Here I refer
to collaboration in design and delivery of a paper as opposed to different
people taking responsibility for discrete sections. Genuine collaborative
teaching can be enormously beneficial to students who are immediately
forced to consider different perspectives, but teachers can also grow in their
own practice through authentic co-teaching.
Some academics comment that they would like to engage in reflective
practice, but they are uncertain about the kind of questions they should be
asking about their teaching. In the process of participation in the
Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, your TDU supervisors will
regularly invite you to question different features of your practice. One of
the goals of the Programme is that participants will come out of it with the
capacity to begin interrogating their own practice and provide similar
mentoring to academics in their own area. TDU will also introduce a
workshop on Becoming a Reflective Practitioner in our programme for
2010. Ultimately, one of the most effective forms of professional
development occurs when a culture of mentoring conversations around
teaching occurs across the campus.
Consulting the scholarship on higher education
Complementing these different ways of getting feedback on our teaching
and the students‟ learning there is an extensive body of research on tertiary
teaching which we can consult to help us make sense of this feedback,
modify our practice and more generally inform our thinking and decisionmaking about teaching. Reference to the research on teaching means that
our teaching behaviours can be informed by the kind of rigorous evidence
that we expect to be part of research endeavours.
The following is a brief summary of the ways in which research on
teaching can improve our practices and enhance our students‟ learning:
Research on teaching can:
 Help us to inform, critique our values and beliefs about teaching
 Give us insight into different aspects of student learning approaches and
behaviours
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Help inform our choices about course design, classroom and assessment
practice
 Assist in the design, implementation and evaluation of innovative
teaching
 Inform our review of and reflection on practice and subsequent teaching
modifications
 Give research-based rigour to our practice
 Enable us to contribute through publication on teaching practice to the
scholarship of higher education
If you would like help with finding appropriate research or publishing
research findings on your teaching, contact Pip or Dorothy for assistance.

Finally, I would like to add a few thoughts on teaching portfolios. You can
draw on all of these sources when compiling your teaching portfolio, which
should both draw on different forms of feedback and the higher education
scholarship. Portfolios have typically been presented as multi-purpose
tools and Lisa Emerson‟s article demonstrates that they can be used as a
document of achievement and a process of professional development.
However, there are challenges in combining summative and formative
aspects of the portfolio and these have been acknowledged in some more
recent literature on the subject. Importantly, we all recognise how helpful
mistakes and failure can be for teacher growth, but we may feel
uncomfortable about documenting these slips in a portfolio designed for
awards or career advancement. One tool for managing this can be to
maintain an ongoing record of key teaching and learning moments,
reflections, evaluations and responses but use these as raw data for a
portfolio that is submitted for public purposes. In the Postgraduate
Certificate for Tertiary Teaching participants are required to compile a
career portfolio, a document for public consumption, and a personal
portfolio which is for development and which explores the key learning
moments and the teaching journey without editing it for summative
purposes.
Many academics feel that compiling a teaching portfolio will be an
additional time-consuming burden. However, careful and systematic
documentation of one‟s teaching, evaluations and modifications can
actually simplify the teaching process by providing a comprehensive tool
kit that can be readily drawn on and added to in the design and
implementation of all teaching endeavours. The initial investment of time
and energy will pay dividends over the long term and contribute to the
ongoing enhancement of your practice.
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OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
References
Angelo, T. and Cross, P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques. San Francisco:
Jossey Bass
Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco:
Jossey Bass
2009 TERNZ CONFERENCE
AUT University, in association with the Higher
Education Research and Development Society of
Australasia (HERDSA) and Ako Aotearoa is pleased to
host this year’s TERNZ conference – a forum for
enquiry into learning and teaching in the New
Zealand tertiary education sector.
The TERNZ conference is highly participatory.
Sessions are of two kinds: host sessions, and
workshops. Host sessions are groups which meet
three times during the conference to discuss issues
of common interest and share responses to the
various parallel workshop sessions. Workshops
(which may also take the form of open discussion
around a theme or other activity) can cover any area
within tertiary education research.
Date: 23-25 November 2009
Venue: AUT University, North Shore Campus
Guest speaker: Dr Peter Coolbear, Director of Ako
Aotearoa
Cost: $160 (registrations close 9 November)
Submission of Abstracts: If you would like to run a
workshop (a participative session or open forum for
discussion) please refer to the TERNZ website: http://
www.herdsa.org.nz/Ternz/2009/home.html
Electronic registration is available at the above
website, or for further information about the
conference, please email Pam Wyse at
[email protected] or Stanley Frielick at
[email protected]
OCTOBER 2009 • TDU TALK
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October
November
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ĀHANGA