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INTRODUCTION

 

I developed this portfolio to help me understand, document, assess and enhance teaching and learning in a course I taught in fall, 1992. It represents one version of what a course portfolio can look like and what it can do to enhance teaching and learning. The course portfolio is founded upon two central ideas. The first is that the primary aim of teaching is to enhance students' learning, thinking and development. Teaching and learning are interdependent endeavors, and to me it makes no sense to examine one without examining the other. Therefore I have tried to make this a "learning-centered" portfolio. The second idea is that a single course is an ideal context in which to explore relationships between teaching and learning. Courses represent coherent entities in which teachers integrate content and teaching practices to accomplish specific aims within a particular time period.

 

A course portfolio creates a coherent view of teaching and learning throughout an entire course. It explains what the instructor intends to accomplish with students, how the teacher uses various teaching practices to address these aims and the results of the experience in terms of students' learning, thinking and development. Portfolios provide a way to document the substance and complexity of teaching in a course, and can be used to structure self-assessment as well as peer review. The course portfolio can also be used to document and assess students' learning and thinking, and development.

 

The key elements of a course portfolio include:

1. Teaching Statement. A teaching statement describes learning goals and teaching practices and presents a substantive rationale for the goals and the methods in the course. Ideally, the statement explains what the professor hopes to accomplish and why, and how the professor intends to accomplish it and why. The statement establishes a conceptual framework that connects a teacher's intentions to actual practice and students' learning.

2.Key assignments or learning activities. The portfolio includes several assignments that address important learning goals and represent the types of work students do in the course.  

3.Students' performance on the key assignments. The portfolio includes evidence of students' learning and thinking, either examples or summaries of students' work. Ideally these should represent qualitative differences among students' learning and thinking. For instance, one might select several examples of particularly strong and weak work on an assignment. Or, the teacher might summarize students' work on an assignment by grouping it into broad categories that reflect important differences in the quality of learning and thinking.

4.Student perceptions of teaching and learning. A course portfolio includes student feedback about their experiences in the course. Students' observations and interpretations add a critical dimension to course portfolios, and involves students in shaping the quality of teaching and learning in the class.

5.    Course summary. The course summary explains the extent to which students attained the course objectives, and discusses what worked well and what could be done to improve teaching and learning in the course. It is based upon the teacher's analysis of the portfolio material collected over the semester.

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