While at TESS 2018 David Porter challenged me to think of ways to make Extend more relevant to faculty building an Academic Dossier. Before I delve into earning my final two badges I need to become more familiar with what exactly goes into a dossier.

Awesome. I also got to talk to @dendroglyph about your ideas. He challenged me to map what I would (or have) added to my CV from extend.

— Laura Killam (@NurseKillam) November 13, 2018

The Dossier

I maintain a Dossier (that requires an update), but not for the same reasons that my colleagues from University do. For me, it is about having a place to showcase the work I have been involved in. The content of mine is self-defined. While it has come in handy for accreditation purposes I do not use mine for tenure or promotion as that is not built into the Ontario College system. It contains a profile, description of innovation, teaching philosophy, lists of research, scholarly activities and service. Since a dossier is not required by my College what goes into it is is more flexible, perhaps, than what some places may require. In order to suggest ways to make the Ontario Extend modules more relevant for dossier building I first needed to know what goes into a dossier (beyond the obvious components). The recommended components seem to vary by institution so please add ideas!

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Products of Teaching

Based on a quick review of this website there are more potential components to a dossier than I thought. Things like “products of teaching” can be created in a variety of the Extend modules. Extend often asks us to create materials to help our learners. Maybe all that we need is a quick tips box saying “remember you can add this to your dossier.” I never even thought to add products of teaching to my dossier.

Goals

Each of the Extend modules could begin with a self-assessment and goal setting exercise. Teaching and learning goals are a recommended component of a teaching dossier by the University of Toronto. It is also something that we do yearly at our College as a component of our performance appraisals. I think it would be appropriate to use the 21st-century educator framework in the dossier to guide goal development on an ongoing basis. Personalized goal setting would help to make the modules more relevant to diverse levels of experience and contribute to the dossier.

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Professional Development

This website suggests that a description of steps taken to improve teaching, attempting innovations, and participation in professional development can be included. Extend would certainly help with this. It already does. Achieving the badges can already be added to the dossier as proof of participation in the professional development opportunity. Many modules encourage faculty to try new things. An optional activity could be to reflect on what was tried and add it to the dossier. Reflections seem to be a common component of dossiers.

Dissemination

The scholarship module is particularly relevant to building a dossier as it encourages research and quality improvement planning. However, it is possible to build in an opportunity for sharing of reflection on experiential learning through and Extend webinar series. To attract the attention of some it would need to be a peer-reviewed process with abstract submissions. Presentations could fit into a variety of the “tracks” in the empowered educator framework. Maybe a presentation could replace the blogging activity for those that choose to do it. The presentations could take place after each delivery of the modules (maybe a week or two after the mOOC closes). Embedding the recordings (or linking to them) would certainly add to a dossier.