Writing about Teaching for Tenure and Promotion Faculty Development Center May 7, 2019

Disclaimer The ideas in this workshop provide general approaches for writing compellingly about teaching and learning for purposes of tenure and promotion. These ideas are NOT meant to replace or override any specific instructions you have been given by your department or college.

Goals of today’s session Enhance your ability to write a compelling narrative about teaching Illustrate ways to use evidence to support your claims about your teaching effectiveness PLEASE note that each department will have specific qualitative measures of teaching effectiveness that you will use to support your narrative.

The dossier* includes A self-assessment in which you discuss your accomplishments in teaching, research and service A certified Curriculum Vita Sections for documentation for Teaching Research Service *For specifics please check the Faculty Handbook AND with your Chair and/or Dean

The genre of the teaching narrative The teaching narrative is a story about: what you value in teaching, how you contribute to the growth of your students, and how you continue to grow as a teacher. It is an argument, it has a thesis. It should persuade your audience using evidence, not just rhetoric.

Audience for the narrative Tenure narratives serve three audiences: Your departmental colleagues People in the tenure and promotion process not in your field Colleagues at other institutions (during external review)

Questions to address in your narrative Who are you as a teacher? What do you want to accomplish in the different kinds of teaching you do? (undergraduate, graduate, survey courses, seminars, mentoring) How do your course structure, assignments, and activities support students in achieving your aims? How do you know when you have achieved those aims? That is, how do you assess student learning and evaluate the results? How do you use that data to improve your effectiveness as a teacher? How do you create inclusive classes and value all students?

Typical kinds of evidence (not exhaustive) Syllabi Student evaluations Sample course assignments Samples of graded student work with your comments (various levels) Evidence of involvement in curriculum development Letters from students/alumni Letters from peers (from observations, co-teaching, etc.) List of involvement in teaching development programs Publications on pedagogy or curriculum development Teaching awards/honors/grants or other recognition

Exercise: Critique example teaching narratives The handout on your tables includes three authentic example teaching narratives (not from UMBC and by no means perfect). Use the supplied rubric to evaluate each narrative, then share your thoughts with each other at your tables. Feel free to add other criteria to the rubric that you feel contribute to a compelling narrative.

Exercise: What evidence supports claims? Using the worksheets at your tables, find the claims that writer 1 made about his/her teaching. Then list the kinds of evidence that were used or could be used to support the claims made. Discuss with each other to expand and refine your ideas of appropriate evidence.

Resources For help in clarifying your teaching goals, Take the Teaching Goals Inventory at https://fm.iowa.uiowa.edu/fmi/xsl/tgi/data_entry.xsl?-db=tgi_data&- lay=Layout01&-view Take the Learning Goals Inventory at https://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/gened16/AlabamaLearningGoa ls.pdf FDC Staff are happy to read drafts of your self-assessment on teaching and provide feedback.