Continuing Professional Development
Staff Promotions 2012
Staff Promotion and Review: Supporting Information Sheet
Guidelines for Writing Teaching Portfolios for Use in the Promotions Process
By engaging in a process of continual improvement of your learning and teaching practice you can not only enhance your student’s learning and engagement, but increase your understanding of and satisfaction with your teaching role.
Our Academic Development programmes also encourage you to document this process of continual improvement of your learning and teaching practice to provide material in support of your academic professional development for promotion or career enhancement.
Events
For information on when the events below are running please check our Professional Development Events Page
Writing Retreats (non-residential)
A common frustration for academics is finding quiet time to write for publication. Participating in a writing retreat can help you to benefit from dedicating a block of time to focus exclusively on your academic writing. The aim of these retreats are to provide you with an opportunity to work on or complete a piece of academic writing that you have already developed (ie. your research and organization is complete). For this reason we ask you to identify your writing task on registration.
These retreats will focus exclusively on writing. The majority of your time will be spent in intensive, individual writing. However, this is a task-orientated process and you will be asked to identify achievable writing outputs at the beginning of the retreat. Structured peer groups will help you to set goals and encourage progress over the two days. There will also be a peer review exercise built into the second day.
Prospective participants must be available to attend both days in full. As places are limited preference will be given to those:
- writing for publication
- who have not attended a previous writing retreat (though we will be happy to accommodate you if we have places)
Writing for Academic Publication: Six month programme
“Writing for Academic Publication” * is a multi-discipline programme which offers time and space to focus on and develop your individual academic publications. It encourages academic writers of all levels of experience in publication become part of an active writing community.
The programme supports academic writers throughout the writing for publication process. It encourages participants to adopt new writing behaviours and develop writing strategies to reach publication targets.
Through focused discussion, writing activities and writing time, this programme aims to help you manage your individual writing journeys through to completion of a paper for submission for publication. Each workshop is based on a theme that reflects the writing process, but also includes specific individual writing time.
Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement
At some point in your academic teaching career, you will be asked to write a statement about your approach to teaching and the rationale behind what you do as an educator. It may be for promotion purposes, or for personal, political, professional or pedagogical reasons.
In this session we'll help you identify and articulate your teaching philosophy, provide examples of teaching philosophy statements, and spend time drafting your statement.
Developing a Reflective Teaching Portfolio for Continuing Professional Development
CAPSL has so far run eight courses on developing reflective teaching portfolios for your continued professional development.
In these workshops you will learn how to structure and write an evolving portfolio that provides evidence and evaluation of your work as a lecturer, and that acts as a vehicle for fostering reflection on the art and practice of teaching and learning. By the end of the programme you will have written a Teaching Philosophy Statement and at least two entries for your portfolio.
Peer support will be an integral part of the experience of this programme as you will share and critically review the reflection and writing process with other participants.
A Certificate of Completion will be awarded by CAPSL to participants who successfully complete this programme.
Resources
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATS)
The following document lists a selection of formative assessment techniques given to students, usually anonymously and not graded, in order to obtain feedback about student learning or effectiveness of teaching strategies.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Back to topTeaching Portfolio Practice in Ireland: A Handbook
Dr Ciara O’Farrell (ed)
This handbook is a collection of essays and case studies on the various uses and characteristics of teaching portfolios and portfolio programmes across Ireland. It explores the various roles of teaching portfolios in higher education, and analyses the impact of teaching portfolios on both individual and institutional learning. Its aim is to support you if you are introducing a portfolio programme, or indeed, simply interested in reflecting on your teaching through a portfolio.
Teaching Portfolio Practice in Ireland, A Handbook - Dr. Ciara O'Farrell (PDF, 5,710 KB)
Developing a Teaching Philosophy Statement
Dr Ciara O’Farrell
A Teaching Philosophy Statement is a narrative that articulates your beliefs and practices as a teacher. While there is no one way to write a teaching philosophy statement, this document will provide you with a practical and self-reflective guide to the development of such a statement. It will help you articulate your beliefs about teaching and learning and offer some suggestions on possible content, structure and style.
- Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement (PDF, 61KB)
- Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement (MS Word, 75.5KB)
Sample Teaching Philosophies
This collection comprises samples of actual teaching philosophy statements from various disciplines. They act as examples of the format, style and possible content you may chose to use or avoid when writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement.