Teaching Portfolios

Your Teaching Portfolio serves as a living repository of your achievements in the classroom and as a scholar of teaching and learning. Unlike a CV that is a complete record of all achievement that you add to, a Teaching Portfolio is a selective collection of artifacts that represent you as a teacher.

Your teaching portfolio should be an important piece of a holistic assessment of your continuous improvement as an instructor at UW-Green Bay.

Like your classroom pedagogy, your teaching portfolio should match your philosophy, personality, and strengths. One way you can convey such information is to consider the format of your teaching portfolio. DePaul University’s Teaching Commons outlines the differences between digital and print portfolios to help you decided which format will best portray you as an instructor in your discipline.

Whether you decide to create a digital or a print teaching portfolio, your portfolio should include three areas:

  • your teaching responsibilities;
  • your teaching philosophy and goals;
  • and evidence of effective teaching.

The content of your teaching portfolio is greatly up to you, though most teaching portfolios include examples of evidence from three broad categories:

  • artifacts created by you,
  • artifacts created by others,
  • and evidence of student learning.

Examples of artifacts created by you include a statement of your teaching philosophy; a list of courses taught; representative course syllabi; relevant resources you created as part of a teaching-focused grant (e.g. Hybrid and Online Teaching Fellows, Lab Mods, and Community of Practices); and sample assignments.

Examples of artifacts created by others would include annual review letters that highlight your teaching; teaching peer review report(s) created by colleagues; student evaluations; and unsolicited student feedback (e.g. emails of thanks at the end of a semester).

Examples of evidence of student learning could include photos or videos of student engagement in class; outcomes assessment reports and how you implemented change (or closed the assessment loop) in your classes; and undergraduate and/or graduate research projects that you mentored.

Duquesne University’s Center for Teaching Excellence provides a detailed overview of the Teaching Portfolio. Vanderbilt University’s guide to Teaching Portfolios provides a detailed explanation of teaching portfolios and their importance in your academic career. The University of Saskatchewan’s resource regarding Teaching portfolios includes handouts to guide you through the drafting process of the key elements of your teaching portfolio.

While each teaching portfolio should be unique, you can often be inspired about what to include or not include by seeing someone else’s teaching portfolio. Washington State University has a formalized the teaching portfolio format used by faculty and provides three examples of teaching portfolios used for career advancement. For some more “local” examples or to learn more about how you might begin a teaching portfolio of your own, please schedule a CATL consultation.