The Management Secretariat

December 2014 Case No.: 2012-410-00038

Portfolio of the Pedagogical Competence Development of Teaching Staff

Background

The “Portfolio of the Pedagogical Competence Development of Teaching Staff” must be viewed in relation to the “Policy for the Pedagogical Competence Development of Teaching Staff at Aalborg University” [“Politik for undervisernes pædagogiske kompetenceudvikling på Aalborg Universitet”].

This policy states that “the lecturer is responsible for documenting his/her pedagogical competence development: Participation in courses in teaching or didactics, development of teaching exercises, course planning, experimentation with new teaching methods, use of digital teaching tools, etc. This documentation must be made available through a portfolio/CV compiled and continuously revised by the lecturer. The portfolio/CV should include both the lecturer’s competence development and future goals.

The portfolio of the pedagogical competence development of each lecturer is a short status description, which typically consists of 3 to 4 A4 pages + attachments.

Purpose

A teaching portfolio is a collection of documents that reflect a lecturer’s experience, qualifications and competences as regards education, teaching and supervision. A portfolio may be both a tool for personal development and competence enhancement and a documentation tool that may be used in, for instance, performance reviews and job applications. During the annual performance review, the head of department, or the person appointed by the head of department, will discuss teaching tasks and competences and make plans for the future pedagogical competence development of the employee on the basis of, among other things, the lecturer’s portfolio/CV.

The teaching portfolio as documentation contains a description of the lecturer’s specific educational visions, experience and plans for teaching activities (basically, an extended teaching CV) as well as the lecturer’s initiatives for maintaining and improving pedagogical and administrative competences as well as competences within course administration. The teaching portfolio serves a dual purpose: On the one hand, it provides lecturers with the opportunity to consider and document their teaching experience and qualifications; on the other hand, it provides the head of department (or in connection with recruitment procedures, the assessment committee) with a strong insight into and a basis for assessing the competences of lecturers (both purposes are parts of the quality assurance system).

The following may be used as a template for the teaching portfolio: The template should merely be seen as a source of inspiration. The relevant items of the portfolio must be filled in by the lecturer. Thus, the contents of each portfolio may vary, as each lecturer may select the themes and items which he or she finds relevant. The template is continuously updated after each semester.

Teaching portfolioDate:

Name
Department
  1. Description of your personal reflections on teaching within your field.

  1. Teaching CV, including a summary of your lecturing and supervision tasks, including a description of the themes involved in these tasks, target groups, scope, year, level (bachelor, master, part-time master, PhD) as well as your external-examiner tasks.

  1. Overview of your experience in working with course administration, for example participating in study board activities, acting as head of studies or coordinator/module coordinator, etc.

  1. Overview of your qualifications within the field of university pedagogy, including your participation in courses in pedagogical competence development, PBL courses, workshops, seminars, collegial guidance and supervision, etc.

  1. Overview of your competence development as regards course coordination, coordination in general, developing teaching material, textbook work, etc.

  1. The changes you have carried out on your own initiative or on the basis of feedback/evaluation from the students. These might be adjustments in your teaching and supervision practices, new exam forms, new ways of organising your teaching, for instance by using ICT and other technologies and/or peer learning, etc.

  1. Any teaching awards you may have received.

  1. Development and research activities related to teaching and project supervision.

  1. Any documents you wish to include in your portfolio for the purpose of documenting your pedagogical competences.

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