Reader query on formulating a teaching portfolio as a new teacher

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, Grad Student writes:

Since it's that time of year, I was re-visiting your excellent Job Market Bootcamp. One question I have concerns the teaching portfolio. What should one do if, at the time of application, one is in the middle of the first teaching semester? Although I have a teaching philosophy and syllabi, I have no teaching evaluations to use for 'proof' of my teaching competence. Further, although I have several semesters of TA experience, there were no discussion sections for which evaluations could be provided. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Excellent question - and I'm curious to hear what everyone thinks!

I'm inclined to say that in this case, the best way to establish teaching competence is for one's portfolio to include many detailed teaching materials, such as syllabi, a sample lecture outline (or Powerpoint), examples of assignments (term-papers, daily assignments, etc.), and so on. As someone who has served on two search committees, my sense is that a person's materials say a lot about them--about how much time and thought they put into their teaching, how competent and/or innovative their teaching methods are, what their classroom is like, and so on. Indeed, as someone who knows people who are skeptical of the value of student evaluations, I suspect there may be a good number of search committee members who will attach more weight to a candidate's other materials as "proof" of competent or good teaching. The key here, though, is for one's materials to actually be very good--so I would also suggest working really hard to develop really well thought-through syllabi, assignments, and so on.

I also cannot help but wonder whether a creative job-candidate in a situation like this might, in a manner of speaking, "make their own" informal student evaluations. I've known people who have students fill out surveys early in the semester to solicit feedback similar to the kind elicited in teaching reviews (viz. questions such as "How would you rate the instructor's overall teaching effectiveness thus far?", etc.). While I've never actually seen a job-candidate include anything like this in a teaching portfolio, I wonder whether--in cases like this (where a person literally has no past teaching evaluations)--it might at least provide some evidence search committees might find relevant. I'm really just throwing this possibility out there to see what people make of it.

Anyway, what do you all think? What should someone in this person's position do to best establish their teaching competence?

Comments

[rutabagas]

I like the idea of mid-semester evaluations. Another possibility: discuss your situation with whoever's writing your teaching letter. Assuming they're writing you a letter because they want you to get a job, hopefully they'll be amenable to explaining why you don't have teaching evals. If they sat in on a class you taught, they could also speak more specifically to how you've compared to other instructors.

[jdkbrown]

I'll second Marcus's advice. When I'm reading teaching portfolios, I pay most attention to the statement and to the syllabi/course materials. I'm looking for evidence that candidates put a lot of work and thought into their teaching. I almost completely discount teaching evaluations, basically looking at them only to make sure there are no red flags--which there (almost) never are, since candidates generally curate and present them in the most favorable light.

So in Grad Student's situation, I wouldn't be put off by the lack of evaluations in the file, given that they have a reasonable explanation. What *would* give me pause is Grad Student's lack of teaching experience. But my concerns could be overcome by a strong statement, quality materials, and (echoing rutabagas' suggestion) a strong teaching letter.

[UK-based job seeker]

I’m in a similar position. I did my PhD at a high-ranked university in the UK, and following a research-only post-doc have a few good publications. However, my only teaching experience is TA work carried out during my PhD. TAs weren’t given access at the time to student evaluations, and my department has told me they no longer have any relevant evaluations on file. Moreover, my tutoring was only observed by a member of the department on a single occasion, early on, so none of the faculty have a strong idea of what my teaching was actually like. This is normal in the UK, I think, where the equivalent of assistant professorships don’t usually require extensive teaching portfolios. I do at least have the most basic level of accreditation in university teaching from the UK Higher Education Academy. Besides the helpful advice given above, I’d be very grateful to know if people have any more thoughts about how someone in my situation should approach the US job market.