Presentations and Discussion

Introduction to the Seminar and Workshop Objectives (Nesreen Ghaddar)

�     Nesreen Ghaddar welcomed everyone to the seminar and explained that she is from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in FEA and would be facilitating the seminar along with Salah Sadek from Civil Engineering, who won the Teaching Excellence Award last year, and Saouma Boujaoude, chair of the Department of Education.

�     The participants introduced themselves and explained why they were attending.  A professor from Sociology said that he was very critical about portfolios and what the center is doing.  He said he introduced teaching effectiveness back in �67 and as a result it became global in the Arab world.  It was very instructive between �67 and �74 until it was abused.  Now he sees it being abused again with a focus on the packaging instead of teaching.

�     Amal BouZeineddine responded that the emphasis here is on compiling a teaching portfolio.  The Center for Teaching and Learning also offers seminars on teaching and learning excellence.

�     Several participants were from the School of Business, Computer Science, English, Medicine, Nursing, Fine Arts, and Chemistry.  Most said they were here because they want to find out what is expected of them since they need to submit a teaching portfolio as part of their promotion evaluation.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that a teaching portfolio is a factual description of your teaching strengths and accomplishments made by you; it should present selected information on teaching activities as well as evidence of their effectiveness.

�     When she was promoted to full professor, the teaching part consisted of the courses she taught and a short recommendation such as �good� or �excellent�.  This does not describe the effort professors put into their teaching, so teaching portfolios are a way to give the same weight to teaching as to research and scholarship.

�     Most people cited the fact that a portfolio is required by AUB as part of a promotion file.  What other reasons are there for making a teaching portfolio?  Some answers from participants: �if you want to move somewhere else� and �a document you can reflect back on.�  Some other reasons are:

-          to document how your teaching has evolved over time

-          to show teaching effectiveness in preparation for a new position or position renewal

-          to share expertise with younger faculty members (mentoring junior faculty)

-          to provide teaching tips to new or part-time faculty.

-          for seeking teaching awards or grants related to teaching

-          to leave documentation for future teachers who will teach the same courses

�     One participant from Nursing said that during the war, when the American professors left the country, she was brought in to teaching Educational Counseling in the middle of the semester and had to sit down with the students to see what they had learned because the teacher had left nothing behind.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar laid out the workshop agenda:

-          go through distributed documents and have participants input information for their teaching portfolios, either alone or in groups

-          then look at examples from Salah Sadek�s teaching portfolio

-          finally, Saouma Boujaoude will talk about how portfolios are evaluated.

Items to Include: Teaching Philosophy (Nesreen Ghaddar and Salah Sadek)

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that a teaching portfolio should include a professor�s teaching philosophy; a thoughtful statement about the faculty member�s intentions and aspirations in teaching, especially for the near future. 

�     A participant asked why the �near future� since we are being evaluated on how we�re teaching now and in the past.  Nesreen Ghaddar said this is true, but your teaching evolves constantly, so how you think you can change is important.  You should also include how you�ve changed in the past.

�     Another participant from the Faculty of Medicine said he has been teaching for many years and is almost never satisfied.  Every year he re-prepares from scratch and has discovered that his approach to teaching and way of conceiving things has changed over time.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar listed some questions to ask yourself to help come up with your own teaching philosophy: What methods do I rely on frequently?  (Why that and not another method?)  What do you feel you need to change?  What difference will this make? What makes you feel good about teaching?  What gives you reward?

�     A teaching portfolio should:

-          include examples such as preferred principles, plans for action, or curricular projects

-          avoid generalities when writing about goals

-          include a reflective essay describing teaching philosophy, goals and methods.

-          include a brief biographical sketch related to what shaped your teaching, mentioning barriers or obstacles you have faced and things you have had to overcome

�     The participant from Medicine said that we rely on evaluations by students, but they are asked things that are not proper such as if all basic aspects of a course were covered.  They can�t know this, so their responses are not reliable.  He looks at final exams and the way they answer certain questions and their consistency to evaluate his teaching effectiveness.

�     Salah Sadek said that he was almost as cynical as Dr. Khalaf when he first approached teaching portfolios, but that has changed over time.  The bad news is that, if not started early, the task of preparing a portfolio involves a significant investment of time and effort.  The good news is that once this is done, and if started as early as possible, it takes much less time to update.  Also, you will learn a lot from the time and effort invested.

�     Writing the teaching philosophy can seem like a big thing, but the trick is to leave it to the end because once you compile all the necessary material, your philosophy will evolve from that.  He sees it as a simple statement that begins with a general statement about why you are in this profession.  For example, it might be because of a good teacher in the past.  You could also include how your definition of a successful teacher has evolved over the years.

�     He found it helpful to organize his philosophy under headings followed by short statements about what each means and examples from his personal experience:

-          Enthusiasm and Engagement

-          Teaching the Fundamentals and the Complex

-          Up-to-date Knowledge and Professional Experience

-          Learning by Doing

-          Role Model and Mentor

The important thing is that the teaching philosophy flows easily when you do it at the end.

Discussion of Teaching Philosophy

�       Participants were asked to write something about their own philosophy alone or in groups and then share what they wrote.

�       One participant said her philosophy is to make difficult things easy and for students to be happy.  Her goals are to use up-to-date technology and for all students to understand the material.  Feedback from students and interactions with other teachers shape her teaching.

�       A participant from the Business School said his philosophy is to instill habits of mind; thinking critically and analytically.  What he does is independent of the subject matter.

�       A participant from English said that interactive learning is very important to her; she always tries to change her methods of teaching because she can always improve.

�       Another participant from the Business School said that it is also important to change because you can get bored if you teach the same course for several semesters.  Also, because of the huge amount of information available in the world today, it is impossible to teach in the traditional way; we need to encourage pursuing knowledge outside of class through active learning.

�       Nesreen Ghaddar agreed that it is important to be enthusiastic because if you are bored then students sense this and they become even more bored.  She also agreed that the knowledge explosion is forcing us to change our methodologies by stressing student learning such as problem solving.

�       A participant from Nursing said she sees teaching as a dynamic process with students as active learners and teachers as facilitators.  Her goals are to engage students and guide them on their journey for knowledge, as well as to be a role model and to change their behavior and modes of communication.

�       A participant from Philosophy said that many of the things being mentioned are obvious and general and there is no disagreement about them.  But he really only cares about the few interested students; those he can make an impact on.  He doesn�t take attendance and lets students come and go if they are quiet.  However, this is controversial and doesn�t fit the model of caring about all students.  It could also be considered elitist.  Also, in order to enjoy the class, he needs to be himself, which means an aggressive style of teaching where he challenges students.  But these would be hard to say in a portfolio.

�       Salah Sadek encouraged him to put it like it is but with a positive spin.

�       A participant from Business said that he believes technology is reshaping the way we do business in the sense of �mass customizing the product�.  Just as the GMAT and GRE are now taken on PC and customized based on the answers given, his philosophy is based on feedback and how students are progressing during the semester.

�       The participant from Medicine said that our classes were never homogeneous; students have different IQs, backgrounds, and motivations.  This imposes on us not to have just one method in class.  He tries to promote interactive teaching and learning by explaining the topic in different ways and asking students to explain it in their own words.  He also identifies the brilliant students, challenging them with extra questions, as well as the mediocre students, who he follows because when they understand, then everyone gets it.

�       Another participant from Business said he thinks he is a lousy instructor but a good coach.  He will look up what the characteristics of these are and include that in his philosophy.

Things to Include: Roles & Responsibilities

�     Nesreen Ghaddar went on to explain some of the professors� roles and responsibilities that could be included in the portfolio.  First, include what you teach and how much of your appointment is devoted to teaching.  You should also include instructional innovations.  These could be novel uses of technology, collaborative arrangements outside your unit or the university, and methods such as using case studies or collaborative learning.

�     The participant from Nursing said she teaches patient interviewing techniques with role playing.

�     A participant from Business said that he teaches Finance and uses important issues related to Lebanese markets, such as mobile technology companies, and asks students to apply theories to practice.

�     Another participant from Business said he has had students prepare a strategic plan for dealing with an outbreak of bird flu�both when it is not a pandemic and when it is�and has them pretend they are the Ministry of Health.

�     A participant from English said she was teaching creative writing when Hariri was assassinated and asked students to pretend they were attending a conference on youth at the Phoenicia; they had to come up with a character and their thoughts on what was happening at the time came out in their writing.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that all these examples are working with all your students, but you can also include work you do with individual students and advising and any culmination of this work such as prizes or awards, scholarships, etc.  This speaks to your role as mentor.

�     Other roles and responsibilities to include are the use of disciplinary research in teaching, such as lab experiments and reading lists, and evaluation activities, such as how often you update course material.  You can also include other things you have done to improve teaching effectiveness, such as taking seminars like this.

Discussion of Attendance and Tardiness

�     One of the participants from Business said that he taught 3 sections of a course back-to-back one semester and instituted a policy where students had to pay 1,000 LL if they were late and 5,000 LL if they skipped a class.  The students signed a contract to this effect and he followed through on it.  He collected 197,000 LL by the end of the semester and gave students options of what to do with the money.  They opted to give it to a charity.

�     Another participant from Business said he had the same problem at AUC and here, so he tells students that class begins at 9am and no one is allowed to enter after that time.  It takes a little while for them to believe him, but then he doesn�t have a problem with lateness.

�     A different participant from Business said he makes two �lates� equal one �absent� and AUB policy states that six �absents� means a student needs to drop the class.

�     The participant from Fine Arts said she informs students that she will give important information about assignments at the beginning of class and they are not allowed to get it from other students if they come late.

�     The participant from Philosophy said he doesn�t take attendance and allows people to come and go as long as they don�t disrupt the rest of the class.

Discussion of Evaluations of Teaching

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that the evaluation of your teaching won�t be convincing unless you include evidence.  You also need to make sure you address any weaknesses you have and what you are doing to improve.  There are student evaluations of teaching (ICEs or other questionnaires) and other measures of student learning.  For example, she has compiled a table of course outcomes and ratings (1-5) of how well each outcome was achieved, linked with particular answers on tests, homework, etc.  This is a form of self-assessment of teaching effectiveness.  With ICEs, you can explain particular issues, such as questions that don�t apply to a particular class, or highlight important questions and their results.

�     The participant from Fine Arts said that this is taking the ICEs seriously, but most students don�t.  Nesreen Ghaddar responded that the most important thing is to show what you are doing to improve and address the concerns of students.

�     One participant from Business asked how long it took to compile the table of course outcomes.  Nesreen Ghaddar said it was very hard the first time and she required the help of graduate students, but once it was done it was easy to update.

�     The participant from Nursing asked how many years of evaluations to include.  Nesreen Ghaddar said to use the number of years in the period under review, usually 3-5 years.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that feedback can also come in the form of unsolicited student comments or peer evaluations, e.g. ask a senior faculty member to observe your teaching

�     Nesreen Ghaddar shared an example of a �feedback loop� that shows evidence of teaching improvement.  She gave a 7:30am summer core course in 1999 and got very bad student evaluations (e.g. �too rapid,� �not clear,� �too early,� and �can�t control class�).  After taking a workshop on interactive learning and implementing these methods, the evaluations for the same course she taught at the same time in 2000 improved greatly.

�     Salah Sadek said that there are two options for dealing with ICEs: (1) you can be defensive, e.g. �questions are not as they should be� and �students don�t take them seriously� or (2) see them from a positive perspective; as an opportunity to view your own teaching and use the information to improve.  However, someone else is also seeing these numbers, so the teaching portfolio is an opportunity to explain how you see the evaluations.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that if you can come up with other evaluations of your teaching, you should include those as well.

�     The participant from Fine Arts said that she allows students to write comments about the course in a book she keeps from year to year.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said that the issue of the validity of the data collected from students is an important one, but you need to consider what they say.  When you improve your teaching, ICEs often reflect this.

�     One of the participants from Business asked if students could be asked to help in developing a syllabus so they will be committed to it.  Saouma Boujaoude said that he sometimes advocates this in Education, but it can be problematic because you have the obligation to achieve certain outcomes and students may reject some important things.

How Teaching Portfolios are Evaluated (Saouma Boujaoude)

�     Saouma Boujaoude said that teaching portfolios are tools for self evaluation (how to improve your own teaching) and peer evaluation (used for promotional evaluation) and both of these need to be considered when preparing your portfolio.

�     The major goal of portfolios is to demonstrate through documentation professors� efforts to improve their teaching; not just a collection of artifacts but also reflective narratives.  Just like with writing a paper, you need to provide convincing evidence for your assertions. 

�     One problem that is not yet resolved is who is assessing your portfolio and if they have been trained to do this.  In FAS, an ad hoc committee has been looking at what evidence to collect as evidence of good teaching besides ICEs.  Other measures are being proposed, but it is a slow process.

�     Characteristics of an effective portfolio include that it is structured.  A portfolio should be organized, complete and creative in its presentation.  Questions to consider are: Is it neat? Are the comments organized? Are the contents representative of the purpose? If it is for summative evaluation, have I included evidence showing I have improved.

�     Regarding ICEs, Saouma Boujaoude said that, as department chair, he calculated that an overall score is decreased by .4 if one student gives all �1s�.  Other people will not do this sort of calculation, so you need to do it yourself if it is relevant.  You can say that ICEs are subjective, but that could be said of all assessments.  He believes that, in general, students give acceptable evaluations.

�     The participant from Philosophy said that if all students don�t take it seriously, then the numbers should even out.

�     Salah Sadek said that as the numbers in a class increase, the evaluations will likely get worse, but you can explain this trend in your portfolio with evidence.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said that the portfolio should also be representative of your work. This could include types of assignments, assessments, homework, or field trips.  It should be representative across courses and time.

�     The participant from Fine Arts asked if she should include articles about an annual exhibition.  Saouma Boujaoude said she should.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said a portfolio also needs to be selective.  Select those items that best represent your work.  Decide how much is needed for your own portfolio (you can�t include everything) and keep the purpose in mind (self or peer evaluation).

�     Most importantly, a portfolio should be evidence-based and consistent.  If you make an assertion, provide evidence for it.  Look at the examples Nesreen and Salah gave.

�     Salah Sadek described a method he uses for organizing student projects: he creates CDs for each course with the course materials plus all the student projects for that course.  This has proven amazingly useful for future classes and for looking back himself.  It is also an easy and accessible way of providing this sort of information in a portfolio.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said you can describe how you do this and include the details in an appendix.  Only some evaluators will look at everything in detail.  The key is to be comprehensive (include the CDs) and selective (include only 1 or 2 CDs).

�     Salah Sadek said that an important issue is how much time and effort to put into this.  You won�t be able to give the same level of detail for each part of the portfolio.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar said that the portfolio will be reviewed most comprehensively at the department and faculty level.  At the higher levels, such as the Board of Deans, they will only read what other evaluators have written about your portfolio.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said that with a problematic file, those at the higher level may want to look at a controversial issue, so if it is well-organized, they can look at specific areas.

�     In response to a question about how much evidence to include, Saouma Boujaoude said to just provide evidence for the period being evaluated.  This is why it is problematic if you don�t start documenting your teaching early enough.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said it is also important to consider the consistency between your teaching philosophy and the evidence.  It is easy to say your teaching is �student-centered� but no one will believe it if there is no evidence.  That is another reason to leave the teaching philosophy until the end; don�t claim something if you don�t have evidence for it.

�     Saouma Boujaoude summed up the four main criteria for evaluating portfolios: structured, representative, selective, and evidence-based and consistent.

Discussion of Why Portfolios are Needed

�      One of the participants from Business said one of the problems is that AUB can�t decide if it is a research or teaching institution; are we meant to be full-time teachers or researchers?

�      Saouma Boujaoude said that compiling a portfolio shouldn�t take more time than writing one research paper.  Also, even at research universities, teaching is still a major part.

�      The participant responded that it is not just writing the portfolio but all the teaching work that you are supposed to be doing that goes into the portfolio.

�      Salah Sadek said that these portfolios are required now because it used to be that professors were told they would be evaluated on research, service, and teaching, but people complained that there was no evidence for the criteria other than research.  So now we are required to provide evidence of teaching effectiveness.

�      Saouma Boujaoude said that, irrespective of this requirement, university teaching is our profession and we need to focus and reflect on it in order to improve it.

Effectiveness of Portfolios for Formative and Summative Purposes (Saouma Boujaoude)

�     Saouma Boujaoude went through some questions for reflecting on whether one�s teaching portfolio is effective for formative purposes: 

-         Do the materials show clear connections between my goals/values and actual practices?

-         Do the reflective statements show engagement with the central teaching issues? 

-         Do I provide enough context for the reviewer?

-         Is the portfolio organized to show improvement? 

-         Have I drawn on other sources of opinion and evidence?

-         Did the exercise of putting together the portfolio provide me with a new realization about my teaching?

�     There are also questions for reflecting on how effective the portfolio is for summative purposes:

-         Does my portfolio demonstrate effective design principles to facilitate learning (through the teaching philosophy and course materials)?

-         Does it demonstrate that I have taught effectively (through student and peer evaluations as well as assessment materials)?

�     Regarding peer evaluations, Nesreen Ghaddar said that senior faculty seem more resistant to this than junior faculty. 

�     One of the participants from Business said it may be a problem for people in the same department to evaluate each other because of possible animosity.

�     Nesreen Ghaddar suggested that this could be taken care of by allowing professors to say that certain people should not evaluate them.  Also, it could be used only for formative, not summative purposes; to help, not to criticize.

�     Saouma Boujaoude continued on assessing a portfolio for summative  purposes:

-         Does it demonstrate that I am effective in non-classroom teaching roles? (e.g. a thesis advisee wins a prize or is published in a refereed journal)

-         Does it demonstrate that I invested in teaching development and scholarship? (e.g. not just attending a workshop like this, but implementing strategies; or publishing research on teaching in a journal like Engineering Education)

-         Does it demonstrate that I have contributed to the teaching mission of my department?

-         Does it show consistency between by teaching philosophy and the accompanying evidence of effective teaching, service, and assessment?

-         Overall, what does my portfolio say about the quality of my teaching and would I promote myself? 

�     It is important to ask these questions several months before a portfolio is due, because an honest assessment will identify weak points.  There are also rubrics available on the Teaching Excellence website that can help you evaluate your own portfolio.

�     One of the participants from Business suggested that ICEs should be given 3-4 times a semester so that a student�s grade does not affect the evaluation.

�     Saouma Boujaoude said that research has shown there is no correlation between student evaluations and grades.

�     Another participant from Business said that research done at AUC showed a direct correlation between grades and student evaluations.

�     It was noted that there was a heated electronic argument about this issue last summer, but Amal BouZeineddine pointed out that when the Center for Teaching and Learning held a forum to discuss the issue, only about nine people showed up.

�     Participants were asked to fill out the evaluation form for the seminar before leaving.