Teaching Philosophy

There is no single way to do a teaching portfolio. Keep in mind the purpose of a teaching portfolio as you go about describing your extension programming.

Teaching portfolio as defined by TLTC - A cohesive collection of documents that communicates your philosophy of teaching, summarizes your teaching activity, provides evidence of your effectiveness, highlights student mentorship, and demonstrates a commitment to professional development.

Below is a sample structure for an extension teaching portfolio. It is suggested that your teaching portfolio should include the following:

• Cover Page*
• Table of Contents*
• Teaching Philosophy*
• Situation Statement for Programs
• Extension/Teaching Activity Summary
• Major Program Summaries
  • Situation Statement
  • Objectives
  • Outputs
  • Outcomes
  • Impacts
• Awards & Fellowships
• Professional Development
• Supplemental Materials

* = required

Cover Page

• Minimum of name, title, address, email
• May also include a photo, web address, etc.
• May want to use the title “Extension/Teaching Portfolio” for this document as it reinforces that you are an extension faculty member and not a traditional campus faculty member.

Table of Contents

• Should contain at least the main headings within the Teaching Portfolio
• Consider including those sections that a reviewer might want to jump to in your document
• Don’t list every page in your ToC
• Consider making internal links b/t your ToC and the rest of your Teaching Portfolio

Teaching Philosophy

• 1-2 pages
• Document articulating your beliefs about teaching and learning with evidence of how you enact those beliefs in your teaching
• Identify your objectives as a teacher
• Provide evidence and example of how you achieve each objective and how you modify your teaching based on feedback
• Consider the audience that is reading the statement
• A teaching philosophy statement is an evolving document.
• THIS PART OF THE DOCUMENT MUST BE SIGNED

Situation Statement for Programs

• 1-2 page
• Overview of why you are programming in the area you are programming.
• Often parts of this narrative will look exactly like narratives written by other faculty in your same program area.

Extension/Teaching Activity Summary

• 1- 2 pages
• Summary of information found in the teaching section of your CV
• Table that summaries your outputs and student/clientele numbers by program/class
• Short (2-3 line) descriptions of your programs/classes

Major Program Summaries

• In this section you have the option to expand on everything presented in the last section or just specific programs (i.e. If you have over 10+ years of extension program and/or a large number of programs you might want to highlight just the most recent program you have been working on). If you do choose to only highlight a few, make sure you inform the reader of what they will be seeing and why).
• For each major program area, you should include the minimum subheading from your CV, but could also include additional items:
• Situation Statement – you can use the situation statement from your CV, expand on it, include more information about needs assessments you may have done, etc.
  • Objectives – use what you have in your CV here
  • Outputs –you can highlight not just the list of outputs you have in your CV but also your program development process, teaching modes, more in-depth program description, etc
  • Teaching Effectiveness – if you know your teaching effectiveness scores for your individual program you can put that information here. You can also include teaching evaluations that you have received from outside organization or direct correspondences from clientele. Remember that is section focuses on “how great a teacher you are”
  • Outcomes - you can highlight not just the list of outcomes you have in your CV but also highlight the evaluative tools you used to gather those outcomes or show examples of clientele work, etc
  • Impacts - you can highlight not just the list of impact you have in your CV but you may also describe how you came to determine those impacts.
  • Supplemental Materials – you have the option to add these materials here (after each program area) or at the end of the document. These materials should focus on teaching/programming (examples: press releases, syllabi, teaching materials (ppts, handouts), evaluations, quotes, newsletters, news columns, posters, teaching numbers). Each materials should have a caption that describes what you are presenting.
• Repeat above for next Major Program area.

Awards & Fellowships

• List any teaching awards and recognition you may have received.
• At a minimum this list should include everything you have in your CV under this heading.

Professional Development

• Document those significant trainings that you attended, as a student, that helped you become a better teacher.
• Suggestion: Separate out trainings focused on content or pedagogy.

Supplemental Materials

• If you do not include your supplemental materials within your major program areas you can do that at the end of your document.
• Be sure to separate them by major program area so they are easy to distinguish between them. You can include a hyperlink from the major program area to the appropriate supplemental section.

Download paper-based document

Instructions

There are no specific templates for teaching portfolios. What is presented here are examples of table formats that Extension faculty have used within their teaching portfolios.

If there are other examples you would like added to this document please contact Jackie Takacs at jtakacs@umd.edu

Executive Summary Table 1

Executive Summary Table 2

Summary of Seminars, Classes and Workshops Taught by Major Program Area

Download Excel® file