HI, Jim
This is good stuff.
Thanks
Janet

> ----------
> From:         Teaching Breakfast List on behalf of Greenberg, James ([log in to unmask])
> Reply To:     Teaching Breakfast List
> Sent:         Wednesday, March 31, 2004 7:59 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:           Making Visible the Intellectual Work in Teaching - Posted to TB              List by Jim Greenberg
> 
> Folks:
> 
> The posting below gives some useful insights on the construction and use of
> course portfolios.  It is by Dan Bernstein, director of the Center for
> Teaching Excellence and Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas
> and Ellen Wert,  formerly of the Pew Trusts, and now an editor and
> educational consultant. Reprinted with permission.
> 
> 
>     MAKING VISIBLE THE INTELLECTUAL WORK IN TEACHING
> 
> Dan Bernstein and Ellen Wert
> 
> No scholar spends months in the library, laboratory, or field and then
> discards the information, notes, data, and artifacts collected during those
> visits.  The materials represent the scholar's intellectual effort during
> that time.  They also are the basis of the books, papers, and articles that
> help spread ideas and information, teach others how to be scholars, and make
> up the record of the scholar's work that is judged during hiring, promotion,
> and tenure.
> 
> Yet semester after semester, most college teachers discard the evidence of
> the intellectual effort they put into teaching.  The idea of the course,
> decisions about texts, assignments, creative solutions to problems that crop
> up during the course, innovative plans for next year-the very things that
> make sense of the syllabus and notes in the files and dog-eared texts on the
> shelf-exist only in the busy teachers' mind.  Teachers design assignments
> and then review and evaluate their students' papers, tests, performances,
> labs, and projects.  But typically, the only trace of that enormous effort
> (the teacher's as well as the students') is the students' final grades.
> 
> When all the careful, difficult, intentional, and scholarly work of planning
> and teaching a course is undocumented, it is lost for further use.  Not only
> is it unavailable for the teacher's own reflection, but it is not there for
> aspiring teachers and colleagues to learn from.  It is also unavailable to
> those making important decisions about hiring, promotion, and tenure, and to
> those mentoring colleagues who are being considered in those processes.
> 
> Documentation of the intellectual work involved in teaching-and its
> results-should be a critical part of each teacher's professional record.
> Student course evaluations and peer observation of classes, although part of
> the record, would be much more meaningful and useful in the context of a
> nuanced picture of the course.
> 
> A practical way to produce this documentation is the "course portfolio," a
> written record for each of the teacher's courses that includes
> 
> * The teacher's goals for the course
> * A plan for achieving the goals
> * Assignments and samples of student work that show the depth and breadth of
> learning
> * Reflection on how effective the course has been and why
> * Ideas for making the course better the next time
> * Comment from peers on the design of the course and the students'
> achievement
> 
> A small but increasing number of college teachers are creating and
> maintaining "course portfolios."  To be sure, making a course portfolio
> requires some planning (asking the students' permission to make copies of
> their work, saving copies of syllabi, assignments, notes) and some
> diligence.  But most of what goes into a course portfolio is material
> produced in the process of planning and teaching a course.  These materials
> can be organized into six sections: goals, design, student work, reflection,
> plans for improvement, and peer comment.
> 
>                 Goals
> 
> A good course syllabus spells out clearly the teacher's goals for the> 
> learners, along with a basic rationale for how the skills and knowledge they
> develop will fit into their larger educational program.  The course
> portfolio starts with these statements. For example, a teacher of a
> foundational course in visual literacy identifies the skills and
> understanding that students will develop as they analyze and create textile
> art, photographs, sculptures, or paintings.  A teacher of literary/critical
> theory states that students should consider both the assumptions they bring
> to the task of analysis and the origins of the theories they use in their
> analysis.  A professor of material sciences states that students should be
> able to use abstract mathematical representations of systems to solve
> practical problems, rather than relying on computational approaches.
> 
>                 Design
> 
> In the syllabus and during the course, the teacher explains the
> instructional practices used in the course.  The design section of the
> course portfolio includes these explanations plus reflections about the
> reasons for choosing them for this particular course and why these
> approaches to teaching and learning are likely to produce good outcomes for
> the students in the course.
> 
>                 Student work
> 
> Examples of student work provide evidence of the effectiveness of the course
> and offer a student voice that can complement the student perspective found
> in course ratings.  At the start of each course, instructors can obtain
> permission to retain copies of a small sample of student work.  From this,
> they can develop an accessible archive that shows clearly what students
> understand at the beginning, middle, and end of each course.
> 
> For example, to demonstrate the depth of student learning, the visual
> literacy instructor displays digital images of student work, commenting on
> the qualities of color, line, and form; the instructor also provides the
> feedback she gave to her students.  Similarly, the literary/critical theory
> instructor offers essays that show how students analyze literature and
> question their own cultural assumptions, complete with comments and grades.
> The material science professor provides pages of graded examination problems
> to demonstrate the range of solutions that students use in solving problems.
> In all cases, the teachers display the breadth of student learning by
> reporting what percentage of learners achieves at different levels of
> quality.  The teacher's vision of what constitutes deep understanding is
> thus available for discussion.
> 
>                 Reflection
> 
> Even the reflection section of the portfolio is not completely new work.
> Teachers talk frequently with colleagues about the progress of their courses
> and consider various reasons for their students' successes and failures.
> And most teachers privately ponder their own work before, during, and after
> the course.  Taking a moment to make some notes about these conversations
> and thoughts is a small investment, especially in comparison with the many
> hours already invested in the course.
> 
>                 Plans for improvement
> 
> Again, during and after the course, the teacher thinks about ways to
> strengthen the course in the future.  Committing those thoughts to writing
> not only helps make those plans reality, but also makes the ideas part of
> the record of the course.
> 
>                 Comments from expert peers
> 
> Colleagues with knowledge of teaching practices and expertise in the subject
> area can provide valuable written feedback on the quality of the course by
> reading the portfolio's first five sections.  The readers' feedback on the
> course focuses on central questions about the design and delivery of the
> course: the appropriateness of the goals and content of the course, the
> adequacy of the instructional design, the depth of understanding expected of> 
> the students, the breadth of achievement across the whole range of learners
> in the course, and the teacher's insights and future plans for the course.
> Although reading the portfolio and writing feedback takes time, the
> colleagues who have done this report that learning about the teaching
> practices of others is stimulating and improves their own teaching.
> 
> In 1999, faculty and administrators on five campuses began a project to
> create and use course portfolios.  Groups of faculty members across a
> variety of disciplines from the University of Michigan, Indiana University,
> the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Texas A&M University, and Kansas State
> University are participating.  Together, they have developed a collection of
> examples of course portfolios that both instruct and inspire.  These can be
> found at http://www.unl.edu/peerrev/.  (See also at that site information
> about a conference on the course portfolio, March 26-28, 2004.)
> 
>             What is to be gained through course portfolios?
> 
> Quite practically, course portfolios provide an accurate and nuanced record
> of the teacher's effort and the results of that effort.  They complete the
> picture suggested by grades, student evaluations, and peer observation of
> classes.  By documenting their work, teachers have the option to make it
> available for meaningful formative and summative evaluation during hiring,
> promotion, and tenure.
> 
> Also, by preserving the work of teaching, we can then spread effective
> practice among faculty members, instructors, and graduate teaching
> assistants.  In the same way that advanced students are engaged by reading
> research articles, teachers find it fascinating to read accounts of other
> teachers' work and samples of student learning.  Providing access to a
> sample of course portfolios is a very effective way to promote reflective
> practice as a part of the professional life of college teachers.
> 
> Moreover, the use of course portfolios can generate ongoing professional
> conversations of the sort we have about our disciplinary scholarship.  The
> material in the course portfolio is rich and can give substance to our talk
> about teaching:
> 
> * By presenting examples of student work, teachers shift the focus of
> conversation from presentation style to learning and understanding
> 
> * In writing and reflecting, each teacher articulates what has been
> effective in promoting learning and can use those insights to improve
> 
> * By sharing work with peers, teachers are able to get helpful feedback from
> colleagues that can strengthen their work
> 
> Although building and learning to use course portfolios requires an initial
> investment of time and effort, the returns on that investment are valuable.
> Course portfolios can help faculty and administrators alike make better use
> of time in planning, teaching, and making effective decisions.
> 
> What would it take to make course portfolios a regular feature of academic
> life? A pioneering group of teachers on each campus can start building and
> reviewing course portfolios.  But their efforts will continue only when
> faculty, staff, and administrators explore the many ways the course
> portfolio can be used.  Equally important, faculty and administrators need
> to communicate broadly both the benefits of portfolios and ideas for
> improving the model.
> 
>                 References
> 
> Resources on course portfolios
> March 26-28, 2004 Peer Review Project Conference:
> http://www.unl.edu/peerrev/conference/
> 
> Hutchings, P. (Ed.) (1998).  The course portfolio.  Washington, DC:
> American Association for Higher Education.
> 
> Hutchings, P.  (1996).  Making teaching community property.  Washington, DC:
> American Association for Higher Education.
> 
> Bernstein, D. (2002).  Representing the intellectual work in teaching
> through peer-reviewed course portfolios.  In S. Davis & W. Buskist, (Eds.),> 
> The teaching of psychology:  Essays in honor of Wilbert J. McKeachie and
> Charles L. Brewer (215-229).  Mahwah, New Jersey:  Lawrence Erlbaum
> Associates.
> 
> Bernstein, D.J., Jonson, Jessica, & Smith, K.L. (2000).  An examination of
> the implementation of peer review of teaching.  New Directions for Teaching
> and Learning (no. 83), pp 73-85.
> 
> Peer Review Project:  http://www.unl.edu/peerrev/
> 
> Contents of a course portfolio (a handy list)
> * The teacher's goals for the course
> * A plan for achieving the goals
> * Assignments and samples of student work that show the depth and breadth of
> learning
> * Reflection on how effective the course has been, and why
> * Ideas for making the course better the next time
> * Comments from peers on the design of the course and the students'
> achievement
> 
>