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Teaching Portfolio
As part of research on recent development of appraisal system in
National University of Singapore (NUS) for appointments, promotions and tenure
of staff, this project is concerned with the effective use of teaching
portfolio in teaching appraisals. It proposes to address the assessment of
quality of teaching on three basic features of a teacher: (a) competence of the
teacher in imparting knowledge, (b) facilitating independent thinking and
life-long learning as reflected in the learning outcomes, and, (c) growth and
innovativeness as a teacher and educationist. This study has two sections; Part
I comprises the study on (i) the rationale of introducing teaching portfolio to
NUS , viz, it’s use as an information for teaching appraisal for
promotions and tenure as well as for self-review and self-improvement by the
staff , and (ii) on components of teaching portfolio. Part II investigates on
technical and pedagogical aspects of the evaluation methods of teaching
portfolio.
Teacher Appraisal: What and How to Measure K.P. Mohanan,
C.M. Wang, Alice Christudason and Daphne Pan
Centre for Development of
Teaching and Learning
Abstract:
In this paper, we propose that teacher appraisals be based on
three aspects. The first of these involves facilitating the acquisition of a
body of knowledge, the ability to engage in the mechanical application of
knowledge to problems tailored to classroom situations, and the specific skills
needed for the pursuit of a discipline or profession. The second involves
inculcating a set of higher order cognitive abilities and dispositions
associated with the ability to engage in the thoughtful application of
knowledge in novel or real-life situations, independent learning, independent
thinking, and life-long learning. Finally, the third aspect involves
functioning as a self-reflective educationist engaging in ongoing innovation
and self-improvement. Next we show how the quality of teaching in terms of
these aspects can be assessed on the basis of three sources of evidence,
namely, teaching portfolio, peer review, and student feedback. We suggest that
numerical scores be assigned to the information contained in these sources, and
that the scores be used for making an overall assessment of the quality of a
university teacher when making decisions on promotions and teaching excellence
awards. The scores can also be used for formative purposes as feedback for the
teacher.
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