Preparing a Teaching Dossier: Suggested Framework

How you prepare this section will be determined by the purpose of the dossier, the number of different courses you have taught, the number of years you have been teaching, and the number of institutions at which you have taught.

When preparing for review or applying for promotion or tenure, check with your academic unit about expectations with regards to the number of years of teaching responsibility to include. If applying for an academic position, include teaching responsibility at all institutions. You may decide to use one or a combination of the following approaches

• Write a paragraph which summarizes the nature and range of your teaching roles and responsibilities and normal teaching load. Append a table of your teaching assignments.
• For each course, or selected courses which represent the range of your teaching responsibility, write a short paragraph that describes the course. Provide information about the goals, topics, and approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment.  Append a table of your teaching assignments.

Describe your goals for students and the structures, frameworks, or processes that define your approach to student supervision and mentorship. Highlight significant student achievements directly related to your supervision or mentorship.

In an appended table, list undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars you have formally supervised and mentored. List them in reverse chronological order by start date and provide the titles of the papers or projects the students produced, indicate your role, and include any additional relevant information such as: status, honours or awards the student received, student publications and presentations, graduate school admission, current career position and name of employer.

Think about your teaching strengths and describe a few of the particularly effective and creative or innovative strategies you use to assist students in achieving learning outcomes. For each, describe how the strategy is executed—what you do, what students do, and what resources are used. Identify the expected learning outcomes and explain why the strategy is effective and how it links to your teaching philosophy.

If you assess students using innovative strategies or methods not commonly used in your discipline, describe them and explain how the assessments are designed to match and measure specific learning outcomes and enhance student learning. Authentic assessment methods, methods that assess higher order cognitive skills, and assessments that offer students choice in how they demonstrate their learning are some methods of assessment that will be of interest to reviewers. Aspects of your approach to grading (e.g., the design and use of rubrics and opportunities for students to resubmit) and to providing feedback are also appropriate to include in this section.

Describe any original instructional materials or resources you developed (e.g., textbooks, student manuals, lab activities, case studies, experiential learning activities, and service learning components). For each resource, explain why you developed the resource, the context in which it is used, and its effect on student engagement and learning.

Describe courses you conceptualized, developed, and delivered. Also describe substantial revisions you made in existing courses you were assigned. Explain the need for the new course or why you redesigned an existing one, briefly describe the process, and point out any special features of the course. Include information on how the course contributes to a program of study and the effects on student engagement and learning.

In this section it is important to demonstrate that you receive feedback from students on their learning experiences in your courses, and that you value and use that feedback to make improvements in the remainder of the semester (if acquired during a course) or in anticipation of future offerings. In the narrative, describe feedback instruments and processes, explaining how and when they are administered. Point out what feedback indicates are your courses’ strengths and discuss changes or adjustments you have made or plan to make based on that feedback.

Peer review of teaching.

Peer review of teaching is a process by which you can obtain feedback for teaching development. Describe the peer review or peer observation process used, the focus or purpose of the observation, the feedback received, and your teaching development plan and any progress or improvement that resulted from the process.

CEQ data.

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is Memorial’s standard method of collecting student feedback on course learning experiences. CEQs are administered at the end of each semester, before the examination period begins. CEQ data can provide constructive information from students about learning experiences and inform academic administrators of students’ perceptions of teaching and learning.

Articles 10.30 and 11.14 of the collective agreement between Memorial University and the Faculty Association states: “Recommendations and decisions shall be based on the evaluation of documentation compiled by the Faculty Member following suggestions in the CAUT Teaching Dossier” (p. 39-p. 42). The CAUT Teaching Dossier strongly discourages using student feedback data, like that collected in the CEQ, when evaluating teaching (p. 6).

If you choose to include CEQ data, explain what you think students’ feedback says about your teaching, describe why you value students’ feedback, and connect students’ feedback to your larger processes for self-evaluation and teaching development. Provide the full reports in an appendix. Consider preceding the reports with a table that summarizes the data for the reviewer.

Instructor-designed mid-semester feedback.

Feedback on learning activities and course design can also be obtained from students throughout the semester. If you provide students with opportunities to share feedback on their learning experience mid-semester through informal questionnaires, feedback forms, or other activities, describe those instruments, their purpose, and the nature of the feedback you received.

Unsolicited feedback.

When students or colleagues send you unsolicited feedback in an email, card, or note, which speak directly to specific teaching practices and their impact on learning, you may summarize this feedback and provide a sample of these materials in an appendix.

Awards or recognitions you received for your teaching, either from students, your academic unit, your institution, or an external agency, should be described in your dossier. Provide the award title and year received; identify the granting group, institution, or agency; describe the criteria for selection and eligible candidates; and identify who initiated the nomination.

If you served as an academic administrator and while in that position was responsible for any significant teaching and learning-related initiatives or accomplishments, describe them in this section.

Acknowledge any contribution you made to degree or program reviews, accreditation committees, new program development, or new instituted opportunities for student learning. If you have authored or co-authored a textbook or course manual for use by others in the institution or beyond, describe it here.

Describe your activity on any departmental, faculty/school, institutional, or national teaching-related committee or sub-group. For projects undertaken, describe the origins of the project, the goals, your role and contribution, as well as the overall impact of the project.

Describe teaching workshops, seminars or other teaching development events for colleagues or graduate students, which you have designed and facilitated or organized.

If you have participated in a mentoring program or have simply offered teaching assistance to others in your academic unit or institution, describe your activity in this section.

If you are involved in community outreach work which involves teaching the public about issues in your area, for example, raising awareness of good nutrition or preserving the environment, or if you are offering courses free of charge to those seeking a particular professional qualification, then mention it here. Describe requests you may have received from the media to educate the public about an issue in your discipline. If you are involved in outreach to schools, describe it here.