Documentary evidence

To apply for promotion or some other reward scheme, it is likely that you will be asked to write a document setting out your teaching philosophy and demonstrating that you are a reflective practitioner. You can use entries from your journal as the source for this.

You should keep evidence of what you have done, and feedback you have received from others.    For example, you might use

• Entries from your teaching journal
• Notes and comments written by you after a colleague has observed and commented on, your teaching

Keep these in a safe place as potential evidence that you are a reflective practitioner.

See example of a record form.

Other typical items that we could use to demonstrate excellence in teaching and learning might be:

• Formal feedback from students, eg. end-of-course questionnaires
• Formal feedback from colleagues, eg. minutes of a meeting at which you were thanked for undertaking a specific task, memo from a head of department expressing appreciation.
• Informal feedback from students, eg ‘post-it note’ feedback stuck onto a sheet of paper and photocopied
• Unsolicited feedback, such as thank you cards and emails from students and colleagues
• Module or course descriptions that you have prepared, or helped to prepare
• Lesson outlines, handouts and other teaching material
• Printouts of online materials and resources that you have developed
• Published papers on aspects of teaching and learning in your subject

If you are asked to present documentary evidence, be selective. Choose one or two of the best examples to support each point you are making, eg your best innovatory work, your best formal student feedback, your best unsolicited feedback.

If you have no specific instructions on how to present your case, a good approach is to make a succinct case in writing, under a series of appropriate headings to address each of the criteria you need to demonstrate you have fulfilled. For each point, say what you are presenting as evidence, and where this evidence can be found (e.g. ‘this is demonstrated by the student feedback summary presented in appendix C) Present a separate, indexed dossier of evidence (eg a series of appendices) that can be examined alongside your claim.

The UK’s Higher Education Academy Framework of Professional Standards provides further ideas on the standards expected of excellent teachers.