Welcome to Staff Development at George Brown College!
Teaching Portfolio Profiles
 Deborah Reid: Our Students are Our Industry
Deborah Reid, Professor in the Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts, strongly identifies with her students. She begins her statement of teaching philosophy with a quote from Fernand Point, the master French Chef: "In all professions without doubt, but certainly in cooking, one is a student all his life."
She says, "This quotation hangs over my office desk reminding me that I am here to learn."
In every class she teaches, Deborah tries to connect the principles that underlie her profession, her instructional goals, and the abilities and aspirations of her students. She says, "Right now, in one practical cookery class I have two students in the early, exuberant stages of an entrepreneurial undertaking, another student bravely seeking assistance for a possible learning disability, journeying alongside 15 other distinct young chefs. Demonstrating respect for our differences while remaining willing to learn is our only path to success."
Shortly after she became a full-time professor at the college, she says she feared that she would lose her currency in her profession. And she was aware that this could have a negative impact on her relevance in the lab. "My vitality could only be won through continuing to grow as a teacher and chef. Relevance to students depends on my enthusiasm for both practices and their integration."
Traveling, dining out, formal opportunities for professional development such as conferences, and talking with her students—all of these help Deborah to stay in tune with developments in her industry and in teaching.
Another of Deborah’s favourite quotes comes from Parker Palmer: "To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced."
She says, "Like Fernand Point did for me, I need to ‘walk the talk’ of teachability in all my professional life. I need to account for my own limitations and biases and through truthful admissions. I have discovered that my students’ confidence in me is bolstered rather than diminished. Telling the truth, with discernment and care, creates the kind of ‘accountability’ that ensures our professional community thrives."
Developing and maintaining a strong connection with being and chef and being a teacher has remained a theme for Deborah. Ultimately, however, for her the gap that exists between the world of the chef and the classroom is an illusory one. "The moment students step into George Brown College they are in the industry. And I get a lot of satisfaction at being present when my students discover their unique place in our professional world."
 Richard Almonte:
Teacher as Performer
Ever compare your teaching to another profession, say, a gardener, an orchestra conductor, or a carpenter? Or maybe you’re more like a firefighter or an army drill sergeant? As part of the teaching portfolio writing process, GBC faculty are encouraged to think of metaphors that describe their own teaching.
Richard Almonte, Professor of Communications in the Faculty of Business, Arts and Design, writes that, over the years he’s come to realize that any successes he’s had in the classroom have come from consciously performing different roles as a teacher. He’s read deeply on the subject and notes, “Numerous scholars have articulated their varying degrees of acceptance of the idea of teaching as ‘improv’ or ‘one-man or one-woman show.’”
Richard names a few of the roles he performs as a teacher: “a) the wise lecturer; b) the dispassionate facilitator of discussion; c) the simulated boss who gets students using/producing their own knowledge; and d) the caring and active listener who devotes significant amounts of class time (and office hours) to having students add to the knowledge of the topic.”
All of these different roles come together to create the way he understands his own teaching. The metaphor for his teaching, then, is “Teacher as Performer.”
But it wasn’t always like this. He says of when he first started teaching, “I was determined to be a lecturer who would impart the knowledge embedded in the curriculum to my students. This approach, which I think I carried off with some success, lasted only my first two or three semesters at the college before I realized my students were being short-changed.”
“My classroom is a theatre in which I perform various roles and duties and in which students gradually, with experience, take on similar roles. Our relationship to each other is that of an appreciative and critical audience.”
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 Nicki Monahan: Portfolio Action Statement
At the start of the portfolio writing process, each participant was asked to respond to a series of questions.
Here are Nicki Monahan’s, professor in the Child and Youth Worker Program, thoughtful responses below:
Q. How would you explain or describe your teaching portfolio to a colleague?
A. I like to think of the teaching portfolio as a “living document” which captures a process of reflection about teaching and learning. But it’s more personal than that because the process of developing a teaching portfolio requires reflection on what teaching and learning means to me. The portfolio is simply the visible product of time spent exploring my values, beliefs and assumptions about teaching; it reflects who I am and why I do what I do.
Q. What aspects of your teaching would you like your portfolio to highlight? Why?
A. I would like my teaching portfolio to highlight both my personal strengths as a teacher/learner and areas for growth; both provide motivation for ongoing professional development. Having concrete evidence of my previous successes in the classroom allows me to take risks from a place of confidence. When the challenges of working with “underprepared” learners (or young people who appear to be more interested in text-messaging than just about anything else) feels overwhelming, it’s useful to be reminded of what’s worked in the past. It’s dangerous, however, to rely on the cliché “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – especially in a world that’s rapidly changing and in a learning community whose students reflect those changes. I need to have a realistic picture of how I’m standing still so that I can creatively adapt to the realities of a 21st century community college classroom.
Q. What elements of a teaching portfolio will be the most challenging for you to address?
A. I think the elements of the teaching portfolio that will be most challenging for me to address are those nebulous moments that are really at the crux of excellence in teaching and learning. It’s difficult to know how to capture those “aha” experiences that we all have – that tell us something went absolutely right. This process of reflection is an effort to examine those components to maximize the defining moments in learning.
Q. How do you plan to use your completed teaching portfolio?
A. It’s my hope to use my completed teaching portfolio to assist me in planning future professional development initiatives. I believe that it will serve as a useful guide in selecting appropriate activities to build on my strengths and push my limits in areas where I may have become complacent or stale.
Creating the portfolio has allowed me to reflect on my classroom practices and consider how to improve them, so I hope this process will continue to flow into my curriculum development and classroom planning.
In addition, it’s a great organizer and will likely serve the practical purpose of having a place to put something that I might otherwise lose – scribbled notes for improving a rubric inspired in the midst of marking chaos, a message to self about a “brilliant” teaching idea that went absolutely wrong and should never be tried again, a flyer for a conference down the road that I hope to attend, and finally a repository for the small tokens of appreciation from students that I might want to pull out on day when I ask myself the critical question: “why on earth am I continuing to pursue this incredibly challenging vocation called teaching?”
Should I truly need to answer that question, I trust that the teaching portfolio will remind me of my accomplishments, comfort me with some evidence of previous success and motivate me not to throw in the towel or coast on “cruise control” to retirement!
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 Rita Barron, Karen Chandler and Barb Pimento: Teaching the Future
Few people can appreciate the role that teachers play in the development of their students better than Rita Barron, Karen Chandler and Barb Pimento, professors in the ECE and ECA programs. Their students are mostly adult learners who are preparing to work in or are already working in early childhood educational settings. Rita, Karen and Barb know that the students who come to their classes are taking the first steps in their careers as educators themselves.
But giving students the tools to build a successful career is only part of what a teacher does. Karen says, “As well as being concerned with who my students are at present, I am equally interested with who they will become. I believe the life-long success and happiness of students is predicated on developing a passionate curiosity structured by self-awareness and intellectual self-reliance.”
She says, “Learning is a complex process that is individual, content and context specific. I try to foster learning environments that are stimulating, motivating, and supportive and that build on the insights and experiences of each student.”
“I believe that all students can learn,” Rita says. “Some students learn faster than others, some learn more than others. I try to meet the individual needs of each student in the class by using a variety of teaching strategies from lecture to use of audio visual materials to group work to individual work.”
Great teaching also requires teamwork. Barb Pimento, who coordinates in both the ECE and ECA programs, credits her colleagues for the smooth operation of these programs. She also acknowledges the support of her director, Patricia Chorney Rubin.
The learning process in the classroom starts and ends with the teacher. Rita says, “Teaching others is the culmination of learning. If I can teach others, then I must first truly grasp the material. I provide students with opportunities to teach each other and to teach me!”
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 Larry Mailloux:
No tie required, but it helps.
Larry has taught in the Skilled Trades and Apprenticeship for about three years. He currently teaches in the Sheet Metal Apprenticeship program.
He’s one of many teachers at the college who started working on their teaching portfolios this year. He says working on his teaching portfolio is helping him to be the best in his profession. “It requires a great deal of energy, knowledge, and self-reflection.”
When asked about his instructional goals, Larry says, “Instead of concentrating on students remembering facts and memorizing assignments or text, I prefer to have open discussions. I have students write and talk about what they are learning, how it relates to their work experience and how they can apply these concepts.” To accomplish this, he has his students design and build a sheet metal project to meet specific construction criteria.
Larry’s played an important role in his students’ successes. “A lot of my former students have developed into important industry contacts that stay in touch long after graduation.”
Watching his students succeed in his course and in their careers invokes a sense of pride and accomplishment in him. “I understand completely the great deal of time and energy it takes to be a successful teacher and have been doing so for some time.”
He says, “My passion and enthusiasm for my trade carries over to my students and inspires them to want to learn more and stand out both in school and in the workplace.”
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Staff Development Department
Phone: (416) 415-5000 ext. 4932
Fax: (416) 415-4768
500 MacPherson Avenue - Suite 110 Toronto, ON
M5R 1X1
Revised:
September 20, 2010
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