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Developing an Academic Portfolio

Introduction

Why would you want to develop an Academic Portfolio??? An academic portfolio is a mechanism through which we can record the events of our academic careers and use this evidence for the development of teaching and research quality. The maintenance of such a portfolio enables us to take a scholarly approach to all aspects of our work as we consider the sort of work we do, the evidence for the quality of our work, the ways in which we can use the evidence for the development of our teaching and research practice, and to providea space for long-term scholarly critique on all aspects of our work.

Prosser et al. (2000) suggest that an academic portfolio provides:

A record of events and results and our reactions to them
Data on which to base reflective discussion
Opportunity for us to challenge ourselves and what we do
Impetus to take action that is informed and planned
The means to develop a personal philosophy of teaching and research

The most important reason to develop an academic portfolio is for the systematic and scholarly enquiry into all aspects of our own work. We can use aspects of an academic portfolio to suit a variety of different reasons ranging from personal academic development, improvements in the quality of our teaching practice, development and maintenance of an overall research plan, informing the development of our leadership and management roles, to guiding our decisions on how we focus our community service tobest effect.

The information in this document is designed to support academics at Macquarie University develop their portfolios in a manner that is consistent with Macquarie developmental procedures.

The Macquarie University Context

The Iniversity has an interest in the development of the quality of its staff in relation to several key areas:

Learning and teaching
Research
Community outreach and
Leadership and management

To this end there are various support mechanisms in place. Academics can call on the expertise relating to each of these areas from specialised units. These include the Centre for Flexible Learning, the Research Office, the Centre for Professional Development, and the Library. More importantly, the University and the Union have agreed that each division and department needs to support their staff through regular Performance Management. Your academic portfolio should enable you to prepare well for discussions with academic advisors and provide evidence to support your areas of strength and help identify areas that you may wish to develop. The Enterprise Agreement states that such support should help you:

Identify your professional development directions in light of your current and likely future work roles and responsibilities
Document your plan with demonstrable links to the organisational unit’s vision, mission, goals and priorities
Engage in an ongoing process of professional development to improve your work and effectiveness
Monitoring and evaluating the impact of activities and using this information to change and/or improve your strategy and
Reporting both your plans for development and the effect of development on you to the Head, supervisor and advisor

Finally, the academic portfolio will be the main piece of evidence for the overall quality of your work when you apply for promotion or recognition for excellent teaching (such as the Outstanding Teacher Awards).

Documenting Your Teaching

Scholarly teaching is one of the most important aspects of academic life. Teaching gives us the opportunity to contribute to the intellectual development of our students in a way that also allows us to disseminate the critical elements of our disciplines. For these reasons it is vital that we adopt the same rigorous and scholarly approach to our teaching as we would to any other academic endeavor.

The promotions guidelines at Macquarie University give a clear indication of the importance of teaching to university life and suggest elements that can contribute to a teaching portfolio. These range from a description of the context in which you teach, the sorts of materials that you develop, to your philosophy of teaching. This list can be found at:

http://www.pers.mq.edu.au/Enterprise/ea0306/index.html

This link also includes suggestions for inclusions to document your research and community outreach.

A useful way of preparing a collection of documents that support the quality development of your teaching is to focus the collection and reflection in these main areas and asking yourself some of the following questions:

Student Diversity – How do you use the variation in educational, cultural, and discipline experience in your classes? How do you encourage students to be aware of the wealth of diverse experience in the class? How do you encourage students to work together?

Content and Course Quality – How do you help students understand what the subject is all about. How do you help students integrate their own expectations of the course with your own? How do you ensure that the class activities and the assessment tasks are consistent with the unit objectives?

Teaching Activities – How do your class activities help students to reflect on their learning? How do you support different styles of learning? What activities do you use to help students engage with critical writing, creative thinking and problem solving? How do you ask and answer questions? How do you evaluate your teaching?

Assessment and Feedback – How do you help students critically examine their work using assessment tasks? How does the sort of feedback you give help students develop understanding of the topic? How do you help students identify their strengths and develop their weaknesses? How does the assessment and feedback support the unit objectives?

Reflection and Evaluation – How do you use students and peer feedback on teaching to develop your practice? How do you integrate educational research into teaching? How do you use your knowledge about students' learning through their assignments to inform your teaching?

Professional Development – How do you keep your expertise in the field up to date? How do you go about discussing teaching and learning with your colleagues? How do you incorporate formal development programs into your teaching? How do you support the teaching development of your colleagues? What reading do you do related to teaching and learning?

Documenting Your Research

Another highly valued component of academic life is research. The quality of your research can be determined by the nature and extent of your research activities and outcomes. Research can focus on many different things so the research section of the portfolio should demonstrate a coherent and progressive research plan and any outcomes from the research. Research can be defined as the 'scholarship of discovery' and as such research outcomes can include a range of things from papers published in journals, invitations to speak at professional meetings, creative works, books and so on.

Contributions to this section of the portfolio could include:

a description of your overall research plan
copies of research grant applications and outcomes
copies of referees' comments and how you have dealt with them
copies of papers that you have published
extracts from other works that cite your own
reviews about your creative works
invitations to speak at scholarly meetings or conferences
your involvement and contribution to a research team
your supervision of honours, masters and doctoral students
indications of how you integrate your research with your teaching profile
commissioned work or consultancies that have resulted in the advancement of your research

In this section it is important to demonstrate your ongoing commitment to research and how your research plans are sustainable, relevant and manageable.

Documenting Your Service to the University and Community

Service to the University can be considered in many ways. It can include your willingness to be involved with University decisions and policy making by contributing to department and divisional meetings, by being responsible for the co-ordination of courses and students, by providing leadership within your department (perhaps by being a mentor to other staff members), by being part of courses committees, by setting up liaison groups with students, and so on. The University expects that you will contribute your expertise to the development of the quality of the University and then extend this contribution to the community at large. The Enterprise Agreement suggest that your involvement with the University community and the community at large can be recorded by showing:

service to secondary education through syllabus or examination committee membership
membership of boards or governing bodies of public institutions
provision of advice or information to governments, public service departments, industry, community groups and so on
willingness to speak in the public media
disseminating knowledge to the community
informing and contributing to public debate relating to areas related to your academic expertise
serving as an expert member on policy or advisory boards for government, industry or community groups

What does an Academic Portfolio look like?
Martin – a brief example.

Martin is an Associate Lecturer in the division of Humanities whose goals on appointment were learning to teach effectively in a cross-cultural environment and commence a PhD. This is what was in his portfolio at the conclusion of his first semester:

Overview

A statement of his overall aims for teaching and student learning
A copy of his CV, his application for the job, and the discipline profile
A developmental time line negotiated with his academic advisor

Teaching

A description of his aims an achievements with students in his first semester
A copy of TEDS results with a description of what he wants to work on
A copy of a unit guide he developed with notes on student reactions
Copies of some of the feedback he gave students
Summary of a workshop that he went to on generic skills
Copies of email messages from students about how they enjoyed his classes

Scholarship and Research

Some descriptions of possible PhD topics and of discussions with a potential supervisor
An application to go to a conference and why it would be important to go to
A summary of research methods that may be important for his research topic

Service to the University and Community

A copy of his response to the head of department about support for international students
A letter of appreciation for his help with a community education lecture