T he Faculty Portfolio: Documenting the Scholarship of Teaching SUSAN MCCLENNAN REECE, DNSC,* CAROLE W. PEARCE,PHD,† KAREN D EVEREAUX MELILLO,PHD,‡ AND MARY B EAUDRY,EDD§ The scholarship of teaching is considered an essen- tial component of scholarship within academic set- tings. To promote the transfer of knowledge specific to the discipline of nursing, this category of scholar- ship must include inquiry into the practice of teach- ing, 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 fac- ulty in the university setting. A faculty teaching port- folio is one mechanism for explicating, communicat- ing, 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 evalua- tive 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 docu- ment the scholarship of teaching. The creative en- deavors surrounding portfolio development are ongo- ing and recursive, necessitating self-reflection and new approaches. (Index words: Scholarship of teach- ing, Faculty portfolio, Teaching portfolio) J Prof Nurs 17:180-186, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company O VER THE PAST HALF century, the dominant view of scholarship in the university setting has identified research and publication as evidence of suc- cess (Bartels, 1997). However, Ernest Boyer’s book (1990) reminded American universities that excellence in teaching is paramount for other types of scholarship to occur. Boyer defined four categories of scholarship: that “of discovery, of integration, of application, and of teaching” (p. 25). These categories have interconnec- tions essential for the generation of knowledge. Each may be used in the evaluation of the individual aca- demic work of faculty and the collective academic work of nursing programs. Boyer (1990) emphasizes the critical role of teaching in providing for the continuity of knowledge. He links the creativity of professors with the development of future scholars. Boyer metaphorically refers to teaching as building a bridge for “transmitting knowledge” from professor to student and additionally for “ transform- ing” and “ extending” knowledge (p. 24). T hrough inquiry into the practice of teaching itself, the scholarship of teaching goes beyond what is con- sidered to be excellence in teaching (Bartels, 1997). According to Hutchings and Shulman (1999) of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing, it “requires faculty to frame and systematically investigate questions related to student learning: the conditions under which it occurs, what it looks like, how to deepen it and so forth—and to do so with an eye not only to improving their own classrooms but to advancing practice beyond it” (p. 13). In their position statement defining scholarship for the discipline of nursing, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 1999) underscored their viewon the critical role of the scholarship of teaching: it “increases the effectiveness of the transfer of disci- pline-specific knowledge and adds to deeper under- standing of both the discipline and pedagogy” (p. 373). Four components comprising scholarship of teaching in nursing were identified: “knowledge of the disci- pline or specialty applied to the teaching-learning pro- cess; development of innovative teaching and evalua- tion methods; program development and learning outcome evaluation; and, professional role modeling” (p. 374). The AACN statement extended Boyer’s *Professor, D epartment of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA. †Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA. ‡Professor, Department of Nursing, University of Massachu- setts Lowell, Lowell, MA. §Director, Faculty Teaching Center, University of Massachu- setts Lowell, Lowell, MA. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr Susan M. Reece: 32 High Street T opsfield, MA 01983. E-mail: Susan_Reece@ uml.edu Copyright © 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company 8755-7223/01/1704-0009$35.00/0 doi:10.1053/ jpnu.2001.24861 180 Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 17, No 4 (July–August), 2001: pp 180-186