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Course Portfolio Review
The 14 course portfolios described below were written by Xavier faculty members and are available for external review. To request a copy of the course portfolio, contact the respective author directly or contact us here in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
Regarding the review itself, Dr. Paul Savory from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, describes the review in the following way:
Similar to the external review of a scholarly publication or grant application, an external review of a course portfolio is a written assessment of a faculty member's effort at documenting the student learning that occurred in one of his or her courses.
In writing an external review of a course portfolio, the reviewer typically structures his or her assessment in terms of four general categories:
- intellectual content of the course
- quality of teaching practices
- quality of student understanding
- evidence of reflective consideration and development
The reactions, comments, and suggestions included in the external review are an invaluable guide for a course portfolio author to improve his or her teaching practices, to refine the documentation in the course portfolio, and to aid in the development of the course itself. Additionally, by participating in this effort, the reviewer has become part of a community of scholars who can rigorously assess teaching with respect to improved student learning.
The procedure we have used in CAT's Course Portfolio Review Project is as follows:
- the reviewer selects a course portfolio to review from a pool of portfolios
- using the general structure described above, a review of the portfolio is written
- an anonymous copy of the written review is given to the author of the course portfolio (CAT can facilitate this, if necessary)
- the author uses the review as he or she sees fit (e.g., makes changes to the course, revises the course portfolio, includes the review in a tenure and promotion dossier)
We hope you'll consider reviewing one of these portfolios. If you would like additional information, please contact us here in CAT.
Available for Review
Background
Dr. Todd Stanislav writes:
In July 2003, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching began thinking again about ways to enhance or expand its Course Portfolios Initiative. I recalled that Dan Bernstein, a former faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and now director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Kansas-Lawrence, was very involved in the early work of the American Association for Higher Education's Peer Review of Teaching project. So I sent Dan an e-mail message in which I wrote, "For several years now, faculty members at Xavier have been producing course portfolios. I am interested in offering faculty an opportunity that addresses questions, again in characteristically vague terms today, such as, 'Now that I have a course portfolio, where can I go from here?' and 'How can I expand upon this portfolio?'"
Dan was very helpful in directing me to a new Peer Review of Teaching Project and one specific aspect of the project, the peer review of course portfolios. From these conversations the Center for the Advancement of Teaching added the Course Portfolio Review project to its Course Portfolio Initiative. The first invitation to Xavier's faculty to participate in this project was in a request for proposals announced in March 2004.
See also: Course Portfolio Initiative
Last modified: 01/2/2006 06:04 pm
URL: http://cat.xula.edu/initiatives/cpr/
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