Teaching Portfolio
What is a Teaching Portfolio?
Perhaps the most comprehensive approach to documenting teaching activities, a teaching portfolio can include evidence of teaching effectiveness from a variety of sources as well as the context to interpret such evidence. These portfolios may include many elements individually considered to be acceptable tools to document teaching effectiveness at Clemson. Please review the Documenting Teaching Effectiveness page for more detail.
In your teaching portfolio, you can also incorporate:
- Copies of all course materials (syllabus, course design, lectures, assignments, tests, communications, examples of student work, etc.) and efforts to support critical thinking and cognitive development.
- Keep in mind that these are key elements in documenting course rigor (vs. grades which evaluate a student's performance but are rarely associated with course rigor by faculty, administration or future employers, as described by James Johnson et al).
- Profiles of students (enrollment, the type of student taking the class: concentrators, first-year students, non-specialists, graduate students, etc.)
- Documentation of alternative teaching approaches and special efforts invested to improve learning outcomes
- Teaching statement (for more information, please visit teaching philosophy)
- Peer-evaluations of materials and/or reports related to Peer Observation of Teaching
- Additional evidence-based teaching activities (e.g. inclusion of previous evaluation feedback, development of new courses, flipped courses, inclusion of course modules that support the goals of Clemson Elevate (integrating activities aimed at highlighting inclusive excellence, global engagement, service and/or experiential learning, etc.)
Clemson's Teaching Portfolio Repository
The Office of Faculty Advancement is developing a local repository of teaching portfolios and we will soon be able to share this with faculty. If you would like to share a document, please upload it to the folder.
Upload your portfolioCreate Your Own Teaching Philosophy
Check out this great video tutorial from Becky Tugman on strategies and ideas for creating your own teaching philosophy, extracted from one of the workshops we co-organized with OTEI.
Watch Creating a Teaching Philosophy video
Examples and Additional Resources
- Documenting Teaching with a Teaching Portfolio
(Cornell University - Center for Teaching Innovation) - Teaching Portfolios from Vanderbilt
(Center for Teaching - Vanderbilt University) - Teaching Portfolios from Harvard University
(The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning - Harvard University) - Curate a Teaching Portfolio
(Center for Teaching and Learning - UT Austin) - Teaching Portfolio: Checklist
(University Center for Teaching and Learning - University of Pittsburgh) - Building Your Teaching Dossier
(Center for Teaching Support and Innovation - Univ. of Toronto - Resources Linked to Teaching Portfolios
(Center for Research on Learning and Teaching - University of Michigan) - Teaching Portfolios and the Evaluation of Teaching in Higher Education
(article) - Twelve Tips for Creating an Academic Teaching Portfolio
(article) - Using Portfolios to Document Good Teaching: Premises, Purposes, Practices
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