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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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)

7. 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?

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. Resources For help in clarifying your teaching goals,
Take the Teaching Goals Inventory at lay=Layout01&-view
Take the Learning Goals Inventory at ls.pdf
FDC Staff are happy to read drafts of your self-assessment on teaching and provide feedback.