The faculty portfolio: documenting the scholarship of teaching

The scholarship of teaching is considered an essential component of scholarship within academic settings. To promote the transfer of knowledge specific to the discipline of nursing, this category of scholarship must include inquiry into the practice of teaching, program development, and professional role modeling, in addition to excellence in teaching itself. Conveying what constitutes teaching scholarship in nursing may present special challenges for nurse faculty in the university setting. A faculty teaching portfolio is one mechanism for explicating, communicating, and enhancing the scholarship of teaching. The methodology for creating, improving, and maintaining a teaching portfolio includes analyzing the mission of the university, articulating a philosophy of teaching, deciding on goals and objectives, designing evaluative mechanisms, processing data, conducting a self-evaluation, applying new approaches, and revisiting and reflecting on the outcomes. Faculty teaching portfolios serve to display, communicate, and document the scholarship of teaching. The creative endeavors surrounding portfolio development are ongoing and recursive, necessitating self-reflection and new approaches. J Prof Nurs 17:180-186, 2001.