Job Letters Addressing Teaching

More on the subject of job recommendation letters for the US market, now that that the season is upon us. In particular, I'd like to ask your help on recommendation letters addressing teaching. I'm under the impression that it doesn't matter very much whether the teaching letter comes from someone famous -- it could be anyone from your current institution. The problem with this for someone like myself, who is based in a non-US institution, is that few people at my institution have ever seen or written such a letter. I can probably find someone who is willing to write one, but how should I direct them, i.e. what is expected of a teaching reference? I guess that my fellow cocooners may not have seen such letters either, but perhaps someone knows about the typical format for teaching references, or even better, knows where to find a sample letter?

Related to teaching, there's a lot of talk about teaching evaluations that one should attach to a job application. These are not easy to come by outside the US. For instance, I've taught small seminar style classes for the last couple of years and although there is an online student evaluation system in effect, the (already few) students are under no obligation to submit evaluations. Lazy as they are, they generally don't. This means that I have hardly any teaching evaluations to attach to my application. Any suggestions on how to deal with that?

Comments

[Mark Alfano]

A colleague of mine explained what a typical teaching letter looks like:

Paragraph 1: Introduce the candidate. Mention how you know him/her. Mention which courses s/he's taught.

Paragraph 2: Describe the key elements of the candidate's quantitative student evaluations. E.g., she received 4.5 out of 5 on clarity from her students.

Paragraph 3: Describe the key elements of the candidate's qualitative student evaluations and mentor evaluations. E.g., students who take her class describe it as 'fascinating' and 'inspiring.' When she was observed by a member of the faculty, she blah blah blah. Tell an illuminating anecdote if possible.

Paragraph 4: Sum things up. Make a clear endorsement. E.g., she is sure to bring her pedagogical skill and enthusiasm to her next institution.

Of course, lots of letters deviate from this norm, but I think it's a perfectly acceptable way to go.

[Kyle Whyte]

Tuomas: Tough questions. I know others with similar circumstances. Here's my understanding of the purpose of the teaching portfolio. It's an expectation that there is absolutely no uniformity in the teaching experiences that candidates have had the opportunity to do. This both goes for folks coming from doctoral programs or fellowships where there was no teaching, to situations like you just described, where you're teaching, but there isn't the sort of robust data that you've probably heard other people include. Because there's an expectation of no uniformity, the teaching portfolio literally provides a minimum of evidence that you're competent as a teacher. Then, in an APA interview, and hopefully on campus, you will have to really sell your teaching. This being said, you should actually, in the right and most convenient place in your portfolio, indicate, straightforwardly and briefly, that in your university (or whatever the relevant context is), that evaluations are only "like such." You should add terms in that make it pretty obvious that students aren't required to submit evaluations. Writing this, in combination with what you report about your teaching experiences, should paint an accurate picture of where you're coming from, and application readers will simply be looking to see whether you display the appropriate evidence for competence given what you're working with. This may also mean that application readers place more emphasis on the other elements of your teaching portfolio. But if, for a certain job, you fit the AOS/AOC and your other materials are right on, the teaching portfolio really just confirms that based on whatever you can realistically compile from the opportunities to teach you've had, you're competent. Tuomas, and everyone else, does this sound right? Or am I not getting the purpose of the teaching portfolio right?

[Kyle Whyte]

Tuomas: I ran into a somewhat similar situation when I had observation reports from one school but not another. In the cover page for my teaching portfolio, I did something like this:

Teaching Portfolio

I have included the most recent observations and student evaluations, which are from X (last year) and Y. For X, there is no observation report because I was not observed.

Table of Contents

1. Teaching Statement

2. List of Courses Taught

3. Student Evaluations from X

4. Observations and Student Evaluations from Y

5. Syllabai for X and Y.

* Teaching Recommendation Bundled with Other Letters of Recommendation

[Tuomas]

Thanks for the helpful comments Mark and Kyle. I guess I shouldn't worry too much about the format of the teaching letter, especially since -- like Kyle suggests -- its role is likely to be relatively small. Good points about explaining the situation in the teaching statement as well.

More generally, I find that applicants are required to submit much more material in the US than in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. In the UK for instance it's typical that one is only required to submit a CV, cover letter, and a writing sample, with two recommendation letters. No separate teaching/research statements etc.

[Becky]

Assuming you include a portfolio (summary of evaluations scores, possibly the raw data, actual syllabi, teaching statement, etc.), is it really necessary to have a teaching letter if you're an applicant who is already in a TT job? If so, who's supposed to write it -- your colleague/chair whom you'd rather not tell you're fishing (or at least not involve in baiting the hook)?

[Kyle Whyte]

Tuomas: I find too within the U.S. that there are some people who provide more information than others, and there are better or worse ways of doing that, as well. People that provide the minimum materials can certainly be very successful on the market. So it just depends on the individual. I'm still curious whether others agree with my sentiments about the importance of the teaching materials in applications. Did I diminish it too much?