We all agree that teaching skills and experiences are important, but it is still difficult to find ways to provide evidence which can be understood easily by everyone. We all understand how to count research outputs, and we can use these as a proxy for research merits, even though we know that sometimes these metrics can be ‘gamed’ in ways which may not have been intended (Oravec 2017; Macdonald 2023). With pedagogical merits, the situation is more complex because many people contribute to the operation of a successful programme or educational service. We can’t just use student evaluations, although they are useful particularly for our ‘effective’ and ‘skilled and collegial’ categories of achievement: they only represent a small snapshot of the activity of teachers.
Teaching portfolios are a way to address this, by encouraging teachers to put together a selection of evidence and reflection from different sources.
Recently we were invited to meet colleagues from the University of Denver and they introduced us to this evaluation system (pdf) being used by the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Caption: Part of the Teaching Quality Framework at University of Colorado, boulder
The three means of demonstrating achievement are interesting to us, because they bring different dimensions. It doesn’t say so, but I think it may be based on Brookfield’s four lenses of reflective practice:
- One’s personal reflections
- The views of our learners,
- Our colleague’s experiences, and
- The relevant literature (Brookfield 1998).
I think the Boulder model combines self-study and literature, but it probably should and does underpin all of the different lenses. We like the general idea of the model, with its apparently equal emphasis on different perspectives, but if we want to have relatively interchangeable evidence types and portfolio structures for teaching, research, and service, then we will need to make the ‘student voice’ section more generic. If you are reading this as a teacher and researcher, can you imagine producing materials to support evidence of your achievements using these headings? Use the comment box or get in touch with us if you have views!
References:
Brookfield, Stephen. 1998. “Critically reflective practice.” Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions 18 (4): 197-205. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/chp.1340180402
Macdonald, Stuart. 2023. “The gaming of citation and authorship in academic journals: a warning from medicine.” Social Science Information: 05390184221142218. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/05390184221142218
Oravec, Jo Ann. 2017. “The manipulation of scholarly rating and measurement systems: constructing excellence in an era of academic stardom.” Teaching in Higher Education: 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1301909.