10 Your own professional development

While your focus may currently be on your upcoming role as a TA, consider how you might capture your efforts and professional development. You can do this in a number of ways, including in a teaching portfolio or your CV. You may also want to keep track of the next steps you want to take down the road.

In this chapter

Creating a teaching portfolio

A portfolio is:

  • A personal record drawn up and compiled by the teacher, often according to institutional, departmental, or college guidelines.
  • A structured means of reflection on one’s work, a process of self-evaluation and goal setting.
  • An approach to teaching enhancement whereby a teacher can gauge successes, opportunities for improvement, and means for their fulfillment.
  • A means of presenting information for job search or career enhancement, such as promotion, tenure, job application.” – University of Saskatchewan, Teaching and Learning, Teaching Portfolios

Your teaching portfolio can include a number of elements that tell the story of your development as an educator. Even if you are not going in to an academic or other teaching profession, this portfolio can help you document the knowledge, skills, and values that you developed during your education. Your teaching portfolio may include:

Adding your roles to your CV

Your work as a TA is part of your professional development and helps you develop skills for your career. In your CV, record:

  • Your TA roles
  • The specific skills you can now demonstrate, such as facilitating online sessions

Learning more, next steps

This could be a great time to write down the aspects that went well as a TA and any aspects that did not go as well or made you uncomfortable. Now, what are are the next steps? These steps could include:

  • Asking another student to attend of of your DGDs and give you feedback
    • This a great way to do peer mentoring
    • Meet ahead of time to identify your goals and any areas that you are trying to work on
  • Taking a course or workshop
  • Setting SMART goals for the next time you TA. See the Growth & Goals module for details

Please feel free to contact us at any time with questions, suggestions, and concerns. In particular, we check this form weekly and will continue to update this guide as the situation evolves.

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Remote teaching: a guide for teaching assistants Copyright © by Meredith Allen; Alisha Szozda; Jeremy Kerr; and Alison Flynn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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