Preparing a Teaching and Learning Leadership Portfolio
A Leadership Portfolio is a reflective record of a faculty member’s involvement in “Instructional Leadership.”
Instructional leadership is working beyond the classroom to mobilize colleagues, students, community members or others to achieve shared goals that add value to our work at VIU and to our community.
Activities might include: championing a teaching technique and mentoring colleagues; fostering the progress of institutional initiatives from within a faculty; influencing specific change through leaderly roles (Faculty Council on Teaching and Learning Leadership, Chair role, etc.); working with community partners to effect change; or creating new ideas and resources that are used by the institution or the community to advance institutional/community well-being.
Elements of a leadership portfolio
- An introductory narrative or video that explains the focus and scope of the leadership undertaken, and points to the evidence provided in the following sections.
- This narrative should focus on a coherent story of leadership that describes either one successful leadership project (initiation, implementation) OR several related stories or projects that took place over a career
- A section on evidence you were a key catalyst in projects described. Contents might include:
- Letters of support from participants in or observers of your leaderly action
- Documents detailing the progress of your work in your chosen leadership area
- A section on evidence of impact. Contents might include:
- Changes in policy, procedure, or behavior/activities in the described area of leaderly action
- Letters of support from recipients of/participants in results of action
Why create a leadership portfolio?
- To examine and reflect upon your own leadership activities and their impact, with an eye toward future efforts
- To document your leadership activities for the Recognition Program
Reflective Process: Growing the Mind of a Scholarly Teacher
Gibbs (1988) gives us an easy cyclical model to consider our thinking. After any teaching or learning experience, think of the experience in three parts.
Learn more about: Reflective Process
Definitions of Reflection
The term ‘reflective practice’ derives from the work of Dewey and Schon. Dewey (1910) wrote that reflective practice refers to ‘the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it’.
Learn more about: Reflection
Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education
Possible Framework for Portfolio Components
Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson | Adopted from the March 1987 AAHE Bulletin
Learn more about: Seven Principles for Good Practice