Job market do's and don'ts: teaching portfolios

I'd like to continue our new job-market do's and don'ts series today by asking search committee members to weigh in on what job candidates should and shouldn't do in teaching portfolios. I'm a bit surprised that no one has weighed in on our thread on teaching statements, as there were quite a few helpful comments in the threads on CVs and cover letters. So, I'm hoping people may have more to say on teaching portfolios. 

I wrote one post on teaching portfolios back in 2015 in our Job Market Boot Camp, and another post in our "Notes from both sides of the market" series in 2016. However, I think it would be good to hear from search committee members on do's and dont's for:

1. How long teaching portfolios should/shouldn't be (how many pages is too short/too long?)
2. What to include/not include in teaching portfolios
   • 'Selected' student comments vs. complete/unedited student comments?
   • 'Letters of recommendation' written by students?
   • Full syllabi vs. course descriptions + reading lists?
   • Syllabi only, or syllabi plus sample assignments?
3. How to format teaching portfolios
   • 'Raw' teaching evaluations (formatted by university) vs. candidate-formatted summaries
   • Etc.
4. Any other do's/don'ts?

On (4), are there things that you’ve seen candidates do in teaching portfolios that worked particularly well? Are there any common mistakes you’ve seen candidates make in teaching portfolios that you think candidates should know to avoid?

Finally, job candidates: feel free to ask search committee members in thread below any questions that you have about teaching portfolios (and search committees, feel free to answer)!

Comments

[Bill Vanderburgh]

There's no one right way, and lots of ways are good. Remember that the point of a teaching portfolio is mainly to give information to the hiring committee about your performance and promise as a teacher, and secondarily to show what subjects you are able to teach. If you can give that info in fewer pages rather than more, that is better.

I really like it when candidates include on the first page of the teaching portfolio a table that lists courses taught, year, number of students in each section, and teaching evaluation scores (ideally compared against a department average). Hopefully the scores increase over time, demonstrating you are on a good trajectory. A line or two describing the evaluation instrument is helpful context. (E.g., "The university's home-grown evaluation survey asks students ten questions grouped into two categories, course structure/content and teacher contribution to learning. The score reported is the average rating in reply to the question {Q}.")

If you have taken a teaching-training course, mention it on the first page of the teaching portfolio and say something about what you learned from it.

In a teaching statement, it is effective to include a few quotes from student comments to back up what you say about yourself. (E.g., "In my x class, I aim to do y. Students find this motivating and effective: {quote from eval comment praising y}.")

I vote for selected comments summarized on a single page rather than sending the whole batch, especially if the alternative is photocopies of individual comment forms. It is okay to leave out comments that are unfair or just wrong--we all encounter those in our teaching evals and they mean zero. More recent comments are more valuable to the committee.

I suggest including just one syllabus with "full apparatus." Mine have grown to 5-7 pages now, but a lot of the content is the same from class to class. Then for other classes, a course description, grading scheme and weekly schedule with readings is enough--one page for each additional course. (After you have shown once that you know how to construct a syllabus, the other info is showing what classes you can teach and how you would teach them.) The full syllabus should ideally be in the subject area the ad is hiring for. I would provide just two or three other course descriptions and then a list of other courses you are able to teach (say whether those are at the lower or upper division levels).

[Lauren]

A long teaching portfolio is fine, as long as it begins with a clear index so I can easily flip to the part of it I want to see. Indeed, I’d suggest that since my experience is different faculty members care more about different things (eg, some care mainly about student comments/feedback, others care more about sample syllabi, especially for a class you haven’t yet taught, while still others want to see evidence of creative and thoughtful exercises and assignments). And while some won’t care if you just cherry-pick student comments, I always wonder what the candidate is hiding when they do, so I’d recommend including the full list of comments for at least 1-2 classes (if you’ve taught a lot more than that, there’s no need to include all of them, just enough to show what the full diversity of comments are within a class). However, I’d recommend putting the full comments to the end in an appendix and including at the beginning the ones you care about or that you think highlight your strengths best. Then, link to the full set so anyone who cares can see what it looks like overall.

On full syllabi vs syllabi outlines: I’d include a mix. Include at least 1-2 full syllabi so we can see how you structure the whole thing, but after that, a reading-list syllabi (or reading list plus assignment list) is fine.

I have mixed feelings about LORs written by students. They could be really great, or they could be (and I think usually are) totally useless. The fact that the candidate sees the letter undermines it as a sign of objective review, and usually they tell me not much more than one student loved the candidate.

[K-12]

Any tips for someone who teaches philosophy in a middle school and, therefore, has no student evaluations? (I have comments from when I taught in grad school, but that was several years ago.)