Presentation to Next Generation Professoriate (NGP) group on developing a teaching portfolio in higher education, University of Cape Town.

1. NGP Seminar
Constructing and
representing ourselves as
teachers

2. Macro perspectives on
teaching effectiveness
› Teacher identity perspectives
› Knowing, doing, being literature (Ronald
Barnett’s work; Peter Knight)
› Daniel Pratt’s work on conceptions of
teaching

3. Macro perspectives on
teaching effectiveness
› Teaching as reflective practice and
teachers as reflective practitioners
› Brookfield on critical reflection and the four
professional lenses: self; peers/colleagues;
students; literature/theory
› Schon on reflection-in-action and
reflection-on-action; tacit and visible
knowledge
› Boud, Keogh and Walker:

4. Macro perspectives on
teaching effectiveness
› Teaching in the neo-liberal discourse
› Narratives of ‘best practice’/techniques
and tips
› The teaching quality debates
› Benchmarking; gold standards
› Students as ‘clients’/consumers

5. Macro perspectives on
teaching effectiveness
› Teaching for transformation
(contextualising teaching)
› Deconstructing curriculum
› Colonialism and post-colonialism
› Decolonising the curriculum
› Critical race theory; gender; class; and so
on

6. Macro perspectives on
teaching effectiveness
› Relations between ‘good’ teaching and
‘good’ learning
› The student-learning frameworks
› Prosser and Trigwell’s work
› Teaching with learning in mind

7. Teacher and teaching
effectiveness
› What does all of this mean for practice?
› In disciplines?
› At UCT?
› In South Africa?
› On the continent?
› In the world?

8. Contextual focuses
› Why do we wish to construct a teacher identity?
› What are the enabling and constraining factors
that contextualise obtaining information?
› What are the micro, meso and macro contexts
that influence the ‘reading’ of feedback?
› What do we do with this feedback?

9. Different kinds of feedback
› Informal – formal
› Opportunistic – systematic
› Written – oral
› Online – face-to-face
› Individual – group
› Self-directed – other-directed (peers; students;
disciplinary community; online; HoD; etc.)
› Quantitative – qualitative
› Formative – summative

10. Structure, culture, agency
(apology to Margaret Archer)
› What are the formal and informal / hidden and
explicit contexts and systems within which
feedback is located?
› How are feedback processes and practices
understood at UCT/more broadly?
› What power and interest groups/individuals are
served through these processes?
› How do you/we respond to these?

11. The notion of ‘representation’
as an academic
› ‘Telling the story’ of oneself as a teacher
› How does this balance with one’s research
persona? One’s other ‘persona’?
› What are the opportunities and the costs?
› Where does agency lie in these processes
and choices?
› Think micro; meso; macro
› And enduring and transitory HE impulses and
practices
› Linking these to formal ad hominem processes

12. Engagement with teaching
portfolios
› Representations of ‘excellence’ (look at the
discourses!)
› https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/cher
tl/documents/2014%20Brief%20guide%20to%20Teaching%
20Portfolio.pdf
› https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-
portfolios/
› https://education.adelaide.edu.au/downloads/teaching-
portfolio.pdf
› http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/63
4321/teach_portfolio_guide.pdf
› http://heltasa.org.za/awards/teaching-portfolio/

13. Revisiting the notion of
teaching ‘presence’
› Online forms of teaching ‘presence’:
› Making teaching and teaching resources
available to peers (Vula; podcasts; vodcasts; …
› Blogs; social media; ...
› Contributing to conversations about teaching
› ‘Public intellectual’ spaces
› What do you want to ‘profess’ around teaching?
› Publicising sources of feedback: students; peers;
experts; other

14. Challenges
› The disciplinary contexts and discourses
balanced against ‘edu-speak’
› The opportunity costs – making teaching
‘count’, but at what expense?
› Collecting evidence of good teaching
that is not self-generated
› Creating coherence in the context of
episodic/’sound-byte’ communication