University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center

Fall 2003

Faculty and TAs Value Teaching Portfolios

A 2003 Survey indicates that over 97% of the responding faculty and 100% of the responding TAs found it "worthwhile to write a portfolio."

After seven annual Teaching Portfolio Workshops on Analyzing and Improving Teaching (1995-2001), serving more than 90 faculty members and over 70 TAs, we decided to take a closer look at former participants' perceptions of their experiences of writing and having a teaching portfolio, as well as their long-term memories of the workshop itself. We are grateful for the generous funding from an anonymous alumna of the French Department and for the expert staff help from the Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies that enabled us to survey 155 faculty and TAs. NOTE: To access the web version of the survey, complete with bar charts, click here.

Overall, the data are extremely positive, with over 97% of the responding faculty and 100% of the responding TAs stating that they found it "worthwhile to write a portfolio." This statistic reflects an ongoing theme of respondents' additional comments: They found it highly beneficial and satisfying to analyze their teaching by writing a portfolio and by discussing ideas with colleagues. Moreover, 93% of the faculty and 100% of the TAs found the Teaching Portfolio Workshop to be useful. The overall value respondents ascribed to having a portfolio was also high: 85% of both the faculty and the TAs found that it has been "very valuable" or "somewhat valuable" to have a teaching portfolio. They testify most frequently that they use their portfolios in ways central to Portfolio Workshop goals:

To think about/reflect on/analyze their teaching.
To document what they do as teachers.

In addition, although the workshop does not focus on using portfolios for promotion and tenure purposes, or for considering relationships between teaching and research, many faculty and TAs (now faculty members) have found their portfolios helpful for such purposes. The Teaching Resource Center will continue to recommend that colleagues write portfolios primarily for self-reflection and self-improvement. The next Teaching Portfolio Workshop will be offered in May 2005.