Pedagogical competence for engineering educators: Re-conceptualizing teaching portfolios Christine Winberg Faculty of Education, Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town, South Africa winbergc@cput.ac.za Simon Winberg Department of Electrical Engineering University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa simon.winberg@uct.ac.za Abstract— The demand for engineering graduates is increasing globally. National governments understand the importance of the sector for economic growth, while students are becoming more aware of the greater life opportunities open to them as a result of an engineering education. The role of effective teaching in the attainment of student outcomes is increasingly recognized and many engineering departments require faculty to meet standards of pedagogical competence. Our aim in this research was to investigate the role of teaching portfolios in the enhancement of engineering educators’ pedagogical competence, in particular engineering faculty’s changing understanding of key aspects of pedagogical competence over the process of developing teaching portfolios. We found several shifts in participants’ understandings and attitudes over a short course intended to support engineering academics in the construction of teaching portfolios for the purposes of tenure, promotion or awards. For example, participants shifted from describing or ‘showcasing’ their teaching and learning achievements towards a greater appreciation of the role of reflective practice, and from a focus on course content and ‘coverage’ towards an understanding of concept-building, sequencing and curricular coherence. This paper argues that a short course in the development of teaching portfolios for the purposes of tenure, promotion or teaching awards can contribute to the development of pedagogical competence amongst engineering faculty, but that considerable attention should be given to the complex issue of reflection on practice and that trustworthy assessment of teaching portfolios requires clear criteria for pedagogical competence at different levels of practice. Keywords—teaching portfolios; engineering education; pedagogical competence I. INTRODUCTION This research arises from the globally recognized need to improve the success of undergraduate engineering students in a context in which the demand for engineering graduates is increasing. While most engineering faculty have learned successfully in a traditional format, they are the exception, not the norm. University teachers globally are increasingly required to meet standards of pedagogical competence, with regard to accurate and up-to-date knowledge within their subject area, as well as knowledge of subject-based teaching and student learning, including online or blended learning modalities. Pedagogical competence presupposes a reflective and critical approach to teaching, engaging in professional learning and increasing pedagogical expertise over time, drawing on pedagogical research in the subject area – and is thus strongly tied to an academic’s professional role and identity. The aim of this study is the enhancement of engineering faculty’s pedagogical competence through portfolio-building, with the specific research aim of determining how engineering educators’ pedagogical competence might develop over a short course in the building of teaching portfolios for purposes of achieving tenure, promotion or teaching excellence awards. II. ABRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON PEDAGOGICAL COMPETENCE There is general consensus in the international literature that undergraduate engineering programs pose significant challenges to students and that many are marred by high attrition rates, poor student success, and a notable lack of diversity [1]. Students’ difficulties when encountering engineering knowledge is well documented in the research literature. In the South African higher education sector, there is concern about the poor retention and throughput rates of undergraduate engineering students; there is also concern that the participation rates in higher education, relative to population demographics, remain racially skewed [2]. There is growing recognition in the research literature that student success in engineering programs is strongly supported when the academics who teach on them are pedagogically competent [3]. Prior research [4] has built a knowledge base of effective undergraduate education pedagogies – such as student engagement in learning [5], the use of authentic real-world environments and examples [6], making engineering discourses more ‘visible’, particularly with regard to assessment practices [7], the adoption of socially inclusive pedagogies [8], and the ‘mainstreaming’ of student support mechanisms, such as academic and technical literacies [9]. The effectiveness of these pedagogies for undergraduate engineering student success has been verified through systematic reviews of the research literature. Significant resources have been invested in engineering education world-wide in an effort to improve the number, quality and diversity of graduates, but these investments have not resulted in widespread adoption or systemic transformation [3]. The lack of uptake of professional learning opportunities amongst academics has been attributed to the need to improve the alignment between engineers’ researcher and teacher identities [10], to engineering academics’ difficulties with 978-1-5090-5467-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 25-28 April 2017, Athens, Greece 2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) Page 431