A pedagogical portfolio is a comprehensive and systematic presentation and documentation of educational professional competence.
The Regulation for the University and College Act FOR-202406-28-1392, chapter 3, § 3-8 defines educational competence as "pedagogical or didactic competence to promote learning, including knowledge and skills in the development and implementation of teaching and supervision at the university and college level".
UHR has developed a Guide on assessment of competence for application for appointment and promotion to first lecturer and docent.
USN has specified Requirements for educational professional competence for employment, promotion and transition.pdf and formal university and college pedagogical education.
The portfolio shall consist of three parts
In the pedagogical portfolio, you shall describe and document your competence and approach to teaching, learning, assessment, supervision, educational leadership, and your contributions to educational quality. You shall justify and reflect on choices, practices, changes, and developments both by referring to your own experiences and systematic investigations, and pedagogical and/or subject didactic research.
1) Synthesising presentation
In this text, you shall describe, justify, and reflect on your educational practice. The text should provide the reader with an understanding of how you work with your own teaching, what you emphasise, and how you perceive your own role as an instructor and as part of a teaching community.
The intention is not to describe all experience in detail, but to showcase a selection of experiences and practices that exemplify and document your competence, development, and approach to teaching. Additional details may be found in the pedagogical CV and documentation you attach. Contributions to the development of educational quality (individually and in collaboration with others), as well as any experiences and approaches to educational leadership, are important to include. Describe and give examples of significant turning points or developmental steps that have influenced how you fulfil your role as a teacher today. If you have participated in/led pedagogical development projects, describe your role, the starting point of the project, and reflect on what it led to and its significance for your competence and teaching, and for students’ learning.
The synthesising presentation can be either narrative or more thematically structured. Remember to refer to appendices that document and exemplify what you describe throughout the text. The reader should not have to search for the documentation but should easily understand what additional information is enclosed and where it can be found.
Unless otherwise specified in the job advertisement, the synthesising presentation should be 3-6 pages in length (see also UHR’s guidance). The bibliography and appendices come in addition.
2) Pedagogical CV
This should provide an overview of relevant education and competence development, experience as a teacher and supervisor in higher education, as well as contributions to educational quality and collaboration in higher education.
This template can be used.
3) Documentation
What is described in the pedagogical CV and in the synthesising presentation must be documented with appendices. Many forms of documentation may be relevant. The documentation has two main purposes: 1) to demonstrate that what is described is accurate, and 2) to concretise and exemplify what is described to contribute to the reader’s insight into your work with teaching.
Examples of relevant appendices (see also the matrix above):
Certified overviews of teaching responsibilities, screenshots from Canvas, student evaluations, teaching plans, learning activities, assessment methods you have developed, reports or other documentation from pedagogical development work, documentation of dissemination activities.
Formal university and college pedagogical education is documented with course certificates.
In the synthesising text, you should describe how formal university pedagogical education, and/or other forms of courses/competence enhancement have contributed to your competence and approaches to learning and teaching.
A pedagogical portfolio should have a clear structure and a distinct and good coherence between descriptions and documentation that supports, concretises and exemplifies what is described.
In this matrix, you will find a number of examples of experiences, competence, reflections and documentation that can be included in a pedagogical portfolio.
Key Focus Areas for the Pedagogical Portfolio
In the assessment of educational professional competence for the position categories of university lecturer, senior lecturer, docent, associate professor, and professor, principles from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) are emphasised. This means that attention is given to how you, with a focus on students’ learning, adopt a research-based and exploratory approach to your own teaching and development as an educator, and how you share experiences and insights with others, contributing to the collective effort towards educational quality (White Paper 16, 2016/2017).
The focus areas from SoTL can be useful in the work of preparing the pedagogical portfolio. Here you will find more detailed information on what they may contain:
1. Focus on students’ learning
Describe and reflect on how your teaching practice and choices are justified with a focus on and knowledge of what supports student learning. Important sources of knowledge include research, your own experiences, and systematic experimentation and knowledge gathering in your specific context. What is important for your particular students and your subject? How do you facilitate a good learning environment for your students?
2. A clear development over time
Give the reader an insight into how you have worked to further develop your teaching, and how you have developed your competence and practice over time. Have you changed your views on and approach to teaching and learning during your work as an instructor? Are there any specific episodes, insights, development projects or other factors that have been decisive? How have you sought knowledge about what supports learning among your students?
3. An explorative and scientific approach
Describe and reflect on how you work systematically, exploratively, and knowledge-based to develop good teaching, and how this contributes to educational quality. Have you, for example, explored a specific challenge in your own teaching? Are there particular research, theories, concepts, learning perspectives, or similar that have been important for your exploration? How do you explore what might work in your teaching, and how your teaching impacts the students?
4. A collegial attitude and practice
Describe and reflect on your experiences with and approaches to sharing experiences and collaborating with colleagues, and your contribution to the collective work on educational quality. How do you collaborate with colleagues on teaching and teaching development? How do you share experiences? How do you contribute to a focus on and knowledge of students' learning in your academic environment? Do you convey research and/or development work to colleagues outside your own institution?