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Due: March 1
All Experienced TAs must submit a teaching portfolio that includes the following:
• Statement of Teaching Philosophy
• Professional CV (for a teaching position)
• One Syllabus
• One Assignment
• An Explanation of the Assignment.
These printed materials must be submitted in a manila envelope by March 1st to Sheila Luna, Graduate Studies Program Coordinator. Your name and your teaching assignments for that year must be clearly printed on the outside of the envelope.
1. Statement of Teaching Philosophy: ( Click to view a sample .) A teaching philosophy statement explains the values and theories that inform your teaching. It must be concise and clear: 1-2 pages in length, double-spaced. As you prepare your statement, consider carefully the goals and objectives of the ASU Writing Programs. You might also consider the following in constructing this statement:
- How should/do college students learn to write?
- What is the role of the teacher in student learning?
- What pedagogical strategies do you use and why?
- What theories inform your teaching of writing? Consider pedagogical theories and theories in rhetoric and composition.
- What constitutes good teaching?
2. Professional CV (for a teaching position): ( Click to view a sample ) The Committee for Experienced TA Professional Development (those doing this evaluation) is interested in your teaching expertise. Therefore, the CV you submit should foreground teaching-related material.
- Name, office, phone, e-mail
- Degrees earned and in progress
- Teaching experience: courses taught and currently teaching, at ASU and elsewhere
- Courses or workshops taken which influence your teaching
- Teaching-related publications, presentations, or conferences attended
- Employment or volunteer work related to teaching (i.e. tutoring, educational grant writing, substituting, interning, etc.)
- Other experience or education that has directly impacted your teaching
3. One syllabus for an ASU Writing Programs course. If you are teaching a literature course this academic year, please see item 6 below for instructions on the literature addendum to the teaching portfolio.
4. One essay assignment for the above course. This should be a developed, personalized assignment sheet. A Xeroxed copy, internet download, word-for-word transcription of a textbook assignment or reference to a page number in a textbook is insufficient.
5. A one-two page explanation of your assignment. In your explanation, please consider the following:
• How the assignment supports the core goals of the ASU Writing Programs, or the core goals for undergraduate program for which you teach (e.g. linguistics, literature, creative writing)
• The instructional activities you use to introduce the assignment (readings, in-class activities, key heuristic or homework activities)• What makes the assignment effective
• Changes you would make to this assignment to improve its effectiveness and why
6. Literature addendum
As most of you know, each T.A. will submit a teaching portfolio to faculty mentors by March 1, and since most of you teach primarily composition courses, these portfolios tend to emphasize your experiences in the composition classroom. It is with this aspect of portfolio that Drs. Duerden, Heenan, and Dwyer can (and will) be of great assistance. For those of you who have recently taught primarily literature courses for the department, it is still wise to put together a portfolio that emphasizes teaching in general, both composition AND literature courses, so as highlight your classroom skills on as many different levels as possible.
Dr. Steve Farmer’s duties as a mentor of graduate students who teach literature involve getting T.A.’s to gather together an additional set of material, an addendum of sorts to the main portfolio. This section of the teaching portfolio will focus on your experience as a teacher of literature courses, and it will include the following:
- a statement of teaching philosophy geared toward teaching literature courses;
- a course syllabus from a class the T.A. has taught autonomously or from a course the T.A. envisions teaching at some point in the future, as well as a stated rationale for this syllabus and its text selections;
- an assignment and/or exam that the T.A. has used or envisions using at some point, as well as a stated rationale for this assignment or exam.
- T.A.s might also consider including in this section of the portfolio Dr. Farmer’s “class visit” write-up(s) and/or letters of recommendation.
- In addition, T.A.s might also consider creating a job-market ready c.v. that emphasizes teaching experience in the literature classroom.