Just before the end of the year, I got an email from a former colleague of mine who is doing her first run on the job market. She asked if I had any input on the difference between a teaching portfolio and "evidence of teaching effectiveness." The latter phrase is commonly used on job ads these days as a required component of one's application, but it is often ambiguous as to what exactly should be included. Here's what I told her in my response:
When I was last on the job market, my teaching portfolio contained (1) my statement of teaching philosophy, (2) a brief summary of my student evaluations from the last several years, (3) two full sets of student evaluations from recent courses taught, (4) two full sample syllabi, and (5) two brief course proposals (with reading lists) for courses I was ready to teach but had never actually taught. When I was asked for evidence of teaching effectiveness, I usually included fewer materials — the teaching statement, summary of evaluations, a single set of student evaluations, one sample syllabus, and sometimes one course proposal. If I could, I tailored these documents to the job ad. If I were expected to teach a course like Contemporary Moral Problems, for instance, then I'd be sure to include evaluations from that course, and if I were expected to teach a philosophy of technology course, then I'd slip in my course proposal for that class.
In my experience, asking for an entire teaching portfolio has become relatively rare. In my last job search, less than 15% of the jobs I applied for requested it. Requests for either "evidence of teaching effectiveness" or a specific list of teaching-related items appears to be the norm now. I suspect that this is because there are so many job applicants now that most committee members don't want to sift through a portfolio of 25-30 pages and have assumed that evidence of teaching effectiveness should be more focused and concise than a full portfolio. The institutions that requested full portfolios were, as you might expect, teaching focused schools, and I suspect that the portfolio was one of the weightiest parts of those application.
This, however, is only my impression of the difference, and I could be mistaken. Does anyone else have a take on the distinction between a teaching portfolio and "evidence of teaching effectiveness" who would like to weigh in?
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