How do teachers reflect upon their teaching in teaching portfolios? – Analysis of teachers’ portfolios at seminars on how to document your pedagogical qualifications and skills at the chalmers university of technology

Paper in proceeding, 2018

The Chalmers University of Technology has for many years stressed the importance of pedagogical qualifications and skills. In the Chalmers´ Faculty Appointment Regulations and in Chalmers vision of pedagogical competence (Chalmers´ vision of pedagogical competence, 2017) it is decided about the requirements for how the pedagogical competencies and skills should be documented. International development of pedagogical skill has been highlighted for more than 30 years (Report to the European Commission on Improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s higher education institutions, 2013; Gunn, V. & Fisk, A., 2014). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Antman, L. & Olsson, T. 2007; Boyer, 1990; Kreber, C., 2006; Trigwell, K., Martin, E., Benjamin, J. & Prosser, M., 2000; Trigwell, K. & Shales, S., 2004) is a concept used in the development work at the Chalmers University of Technology and also implemented in all courses in teaching and learning in higher education for employed teachers. The Chalmers University of Technology has developed guidelines for writing the teaching portfolio (Chalmers University of Technology. Guidelines for pedagogical portfolio, 2017). In the teaching portfolio, teachers’ are encouraged to document their pedagogical practices and experiences and to reflect upon concrete examples of their teaching using the didactic questions; what, how, why, and the result of their teaching and student learning. To show pedagogical skill, the teachers’ reflection is a very important part of the teaching portfolio. This paper reports and discusses qualitative aspects regarding how teachers reflect and write about their teaching practice and student learning. The study indicates that teachers have difficulties to reflect critically upon their teaching and supervision. The texts are often more descriptive and quantitative than reflective. It is frequently unclear how teachers’ proven experience and teaching approach/theory are applied in the teachers’ pedagogical practice in order to support student learning. In addition, the teachers’ development perspective, i.e. future vision, is often lacking; how do I work with pedagogical tasks today and how do I want to develop my pedagogical competence in the future? This has consequences for how teachers work with educational development and for how, for example, active learning is implemented.