You should now feel more knowledgeable about the requirements of a SPS B2-compliant, McMaster teaching portfolio. However, knowing the purpose and technical requirements of a teaching portfolio does not necessarily translate to feeling confident about getting started with writing and assembling one. This page aims to help you with that.
Below, a cyclical process for creating or revising a teaching portfolio is recommended. As you review the steps, take 10 minutes to reflect on the suggestions and jot down ideas for how you might approach them in your own teaching portfolio.
Expandable List
As you begin to develop or update your teaching portfolio, it can be helpful to reflect on various levels of context that may inform or inspire your teaching:
- Consider how teaching and learning is prioritized or articulated within the culture and strategic priorities of your Faculty and/or department.
- Familiarize yourself with institutional strategies related to teaching and learning and consider how your teaching aligns with them.
- Take stock of disciplinary norms or expectations that influence your perspectives, practices, and pedagogical approaches.
This is the only time you will see the recommendation “quantity over quality” related to your teaching portfolio. For now, compile all of the available evidence of your teaching effectiveness. This will help you get a sense of what you have and consider what examples you may wish to discuss in Part A of your portfolio.
Once you are further along in your portfolio process – having identified your beliefs, methods, impacts and goals – you can narrow down your comprehensive collection of evidence to only the most exemplary items that best align with the portfolio’s narrative. At that point, quality will again reign over quantity as you select a subset of the evidence for inclusion in your portfolio.
Now that you’re familiar with the types of evidence you have available to you, reflect on the totality of what the evidence represents about your personal teaching philosophy, practices, and contributions. Jot down the major themes that arise from taking such a holistic view.
From there, you can write your Description of Teaching Philosophy, which will establish a strong narrative for your portfolio. The values and beliefs articulated in your teaching philosophy will serve as thesis of your narrative, which you can then reinforce with the examples and evidence included throughout the rest of your portfolio.
Once all of the components of your teaching portfolio are drafted, review your portfolio for clarity, alignment (i.e. consistency), compliance with the requirements of SPS B2, and persuasiveness. It is recommended that you seek feedback from colleagues or Educational Developers as you work towards finalizing your portfolio. Doing so can bring a fresh set of eyes to your extensive work and serve as a preliminary, unofficial review of what you have written.
A teaching portfolio is best thought of as a living document that should be updated annually alongside your resume or CV, ideally in advance of your annual review. It may be tempting to file your teaching portfolio away in the proverbial desk drawer, but returning to it once a year to update it with new examples of growth, notable achievements, self-reflections, and forms of evidence has various benefits, including:
- Ensuring you keep taking a reflective and deliberate approach to your teaching year after year,
- Facilitating meaningful discussions with your Chair about teaching, and
- Ensuring the portfolio is always near-ready for upcoming career achievements like tenure, permanence, or promotion, or unexpected opportunities including teaching grants and awards.
For further information on the portfolio process, or to consider what this process may look like when revising an existing teaching portfolio rather than creating one from scratch, please check out Chapter II: The Portfolio Process in the Preparing a Teaching Portfolio Guidebook.