Demystifying the Dossier
What is a Teaching Dossier?
CTSI’s Documenting Teaching Series provides an overview for U of T instructors assembling a teaching dossier, Developing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy, and considering the important question, What is effective teaching?’
CTSI consultations are available to instructors with continuing appointments who are preparing for an interim or probationary review, tenure or continuing status review, or promotion.
Demystifying the Dossier Workshop Series
Looking Ahead: Identifying & Articulating Teaching Success
View a recording of the October 6, 2022 webinar
At the University of Toronto, a teaching dossier must be submitted as part of the formal review process for tenure and continuing status. Beyond the information included in an academic CV, a teaching dossier describes and documents an instructor’s teaching expertise, goals and priorities for teaching and learning. It also highlights personal contributions to course and curriculum design efforts in a department or program, evidence of student impact, and evidence of teaching leadership.
This session offers practical tips on how to produce, document, collect and reflect on the materials necessary for the compilation of an effective teaching dossier – including gathering, framing and acting on student feedback and tracking and honing teaching materials – with a particular focus on professional development and educational leadership. This workshop will not focus on how to draft the actual dossier; rather, we will examine strategies for ensuring that you are ready to prepare a dossier when the time comes.
Drafting Your Statement of Teaching Philosophy
View a recording of the November 22, 2022 webinar
Facilitators:
Cora McCloy, PhD, Faculty Liaison Coordinator, CTSI
Kyle Turner, Faculty Liaison, Teaching and Learning, CTSI
This webinar is part of the Demystifying the Dossier Series. Faculty are welcome to attend one or multiple workshops in the series; recordings will be available for all sessions online.
At the University of Toronto, a teaching dossier must be submitted as part of the formal review process for tenure and continuing status. Beyond the information included in an academic CV, a teaching dossier describes and documents an instructor’s teaching expertise, goals and priorities for teaching and learning, contributions to course and curriculum design efforts, evidence of student impact, and evidence of teaching leadership.
This session focuses on one of the key components of the teaching dossier: the opening Statement of Teaching Philosophy (STP). A strong statement summarizes and highlights the core beliefs and principles of an educator while also providing a conceptual framework for the dossier materials that follow. It needs to provide enough information, evidence, and examples from your teaching to convey a vivid sense of the values and approaches of an instructor, yet also needs to be clear and concise enough to be meaningful to the reader of the dossier.
Participants in this workshop will:
- Identify key elements of a STP
- Review steps to follow when preparing to write the STP
- Learn strategies to interpret, connect, and integrate sources of evidence (e.g., course evaluations, mid-course feedback, peer observations of teaching)
- Practice articulating key aspects of their teaching and integrating evidence to support claims of effectiveness
The goal is for participants to leave the session with a clear sense of what steps to take to enhance their drafts. Participants will be provided a digital workbook prior to the webinar and this document will form the basis of the session activities. Please note that this session will not focus on how to prepare/compile the actual dossier itself – for this topic, please register for Preparing the Teaching Dossier.
Demystifying the Dossier: Preparing the Teaching Dossier
February 22, 1pm-3pm
Facilitators:
Cora McCloy, PhD, Faculty Liaison Coordinator, SoTL, CTSI
Kyle Turner, MSc, Faculty Liaison, Teaching and Learning, CTSI
This webinar is part of the Demystifying the Dossier Series. Faculty are welcome to attend one or multiple workshops in the series; recordings will be available for all sessions online.
At the University of Toronto, a teaching dossier must be submitted as part of the formal review process for tenure and continuing status. Beyond the information included in an academic CV, a teaching dossier describes and documents an instructor’s teaching expertise, goals and priorities for teaching and learning, contributions to course and curriculum design efforts, evidence of student impact, and evidence of teaching leadership.
This session focuses on an overview of the content and overall structure of an effective teaching dossier. Participants will develop a plan for assembling and strengthening their own dossiers. They will be guided in how to use a narrative throughout their dossier to connect and create coherence between multiple sections and sources of evidence. Participants will also have an opportunity to engage with their divisional guidelines to draft key headings for their dossier.
Participants in this workshop will:
- Engage with your own Divisional Guidelines on Teaching Effectiveness to map out key criteria
- Identify the key elements of your dossier and artifacts for inclusion
- Assess alignment between your teaching claims and evidence, and identify effective ways to frame evidence
- Plan steps for editing your developing narrative and preparing your final document
- Leave the session with a clear sense of what steps to take to enhance their dossier drafts.
Participants will be provided a digital workbook prior to the webinar and this document will form the basis of the session activities. Please note that this webinar will focus on the preparation of a teaching dossier by appointed faculty members for the purposes of undergoing a review process (tenure or continuing status). Teaching dossiers prepared for job searches carry different expectations and will not be the focus of this session.
View recordings of previous CTSI webinars, including Documenting Your Teaching and dossier workshops.
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