How to Compile a Dossier on a Person

Learn the fundamentals of a teaching dossier. A teaching dossier is important if you teach at the university level. Oftentimes, a dossier is required to move up for promotion or tenure. It is a portfolio of papers, documents, and other materials designed the illustrate the scope of your teaching career. A teaching dossier should do the following:

• It should describe your approach to teaching, as well as your philosophy as an educator.
• It should provide evidence that your teaching outcomes have been successful.
• It should also document that you have made efforts to improve as a teacher over the years.

Set a timeline for yourself. Compiling a dossier takes time. In order to create a successful dossier, you need to establish a timeline.

• A minimum of two months should be spent on your teaching dossier. You won't be working on the dossier this entire time, but should be spending 4 or 5 nights a week working on compiling, writing, and organizing your materials.
• Be proactive while teaching. Always be on the lookout for potential materials to add to your dossier. If an assignment works very well to illustrate a point, save a copy of the assignment sheet and make copies of exemplary student work. If a class activity goes over well, have a colleague sit in during class and write a brief assessment for you.

Collect dossier material. Each semester you teach, you should be working on collecting relevant dossier material. Relevant material is anything that speaks to your skill as an educator.

• Have a folder or box in your office where you save important documents that you may want to use when compiling your dossier. Try to have some system of organization. For example, student papers can be filed in one section while assignment sheets are filed in another. This will make materials easy to sort when the time comes to compile your dossier.
• While the semester is in progress, you should be gathering all course materials, such as syllabi and handouts, feedback you've provided for student work, any TA training material, student work that shows students have met your teaching goals, mid-semester evaluations, emails from students or colleagues regarding your teaching, and any of your own notes or journal entries in regards to your course.
• After the semester ends, add raw data from course evaluations, students' final grades, and any notes you made about altering the course.
• You should also be continually gathering information unrelated to your specific course. Save materials from any teaching workshops you attended, information about student outcomes and activities (e.g., a student of yours being accepted into a graduate program, publications of former students, internships, professional jobs, etc.), any evidence you've been involved in professional organizations related to your field, and information from any non-university teaching experiences, such as public lectures.

Prepare a statement of teaching philosophy. In addition to including compiled materials, you will need to write a statement of teaching philosophy. This is a 1 to 2-page document that outlines your goals and values as an educator.

• The content of a teaching philosophy can be laid out in a variety of ways. There is no specific format that needs to be followed. However, all teaching philosophies should convey your idea of good teaching, what you hope to achieve teaching, examples of your teaching strategy that demonstrate its effectiveness, and reflections on how you can further develop as a teacher.
• The tone should be relatively informal although mentioning scholars who've been particularly helpful to you as a teacher can help. The document should be typed in a legible font with space between paragraphs.

Select documents for evidence. A dossier needs to provide evidence that your teaching methods are effective. The evidence sections are broken down into three parts.

• Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness shows your approach to teaching is beneficial to students. You should include a summary of your course evaluations and an accompanying narrative, written by you. The narrative can explain any inconsistencies and help contextualize your scores in regards to your teaching. In addition to evaluations and your narrative, you might also want to include peer evaluations, student outcomes, and examples of student work.^[11]
• Evidence in Leadership of Teaching should speak to your ability to improve the quality of teaching beyond your own classroom. This is material that demonstrates you've made an effort to be involved in the teaching community and have collaborated with peers. Documents to include are materials from workshops and presentations, teaching materials you've shared with others, information regarding your participation in mentorship programs, any funding or grants you've received, publications on scholarly research regarding teaching, and evidence of any leadership positions you've held for teaching organizations.^[12]
• Evidence of Professional Development shows you're committed to improving and adapting your teaching throughout your career. You should include a list of any workshops, seminars, or courses on teaching you've participated in, and information regarding any mentorship or advice you've sought from peers and colleagues. You might also want to include your own narrative description of your career and goals, and how you've sought self improvement over the years.

Choose items to include in the appendix. Items included in your dossier's appendix should compliment the claims you've made in your teaching philosophy and evidence section. A wide array of information and documentation can be included.

• Some possible materials to include are student papers, course materials, feedback on teaching from students and colleagues, certificates of completion for professional development seminars and teaching courses, and any teaching research or scholarship you've participated in.
• These documents should not speak on their own. You should provide a brief, 1-2 paragraph statement that explains how said documents relate to your earlier claims.

Get feedback on your dossier. Once you've completed a draft of your dossier, have a colleague in your department review it. If possible, find someone who has reviewed dossier materials for professors up for promotion or tenure before. Feedback is invaluable. Not only can your colleague provide you with information on what to keep and what to cut, many academics get "typo-blind" when working long hours. A colleague can assure your teaching philosophy and narrative statements are free of grammatical and spelling errors as well as dropped words.

Avoid common pitfalls. There are a variety of common mistakes people make when compiling a dossier. As you work, know what to avoid.

• Dossiers sometimes lack coherence. You may be asking those reviewing the documents to make too many connections themselves in regards to how the materials are related. Make sure your teaching philosophy, evidence, and appendix materials all speak to your central goals as an educator.
• Do not include too much information. A dossier should be expansive but it should not be exhaustive. Be selective in what you include and only include information that speaks to a few central goals and values.

Understand documents in an adoption dossier need further review. Before completing your adoption dossier, you'll have already compiled a variety of documents for other parts of the adoption process. Most of these documents will go into your dossier. However, these documents cannot simply be thrown in an adoption dossier. They all need to be notarized, certified, apostilled, and authenticated.

• To get a document notarized and then certified, you need a Notary Public. Notary Publics are officials appointed by the state to serve as impartial witnesses to a variety of acts in order to prevent fraud. You can contact a Notary Public through the state department and have them notarize your documents and certify they are not fraudulent. Make sure you know when their term expires. You need someone whose term lasts at least a year.^[13]
• You will then need your documents reviewed by the governmental body that registered the Notary. An apostille is a seal said government body puts on a document to confirm that your Notary's signature and license are valid.^[14]
• Once a government official has looked at the Notary's signature and the apostille seal, they will attach a piece of paper to your document with their authorization and signature. This means your documents are notarized, certified, apostilled, and authenticated. They are ready to go into your dossier.^[15]

Know what documents you need. Dossier requirements vary from agency to agency and state to sate. However, most dossiers should include the following:

• Health information about the adoptive parents
• Financial information
• Adoption petition and post placement agreement from your adoption agency
• Copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses (single parents only need their birth certificates)
• Any forms related to confirming your citizenship
• Employment verification
• Certificates regarding a completed home study
• Criminal background check results
• Copy of your most recent Federal Tax Return
• Copies of your passport
• Photographs of your family, friends, pets, and house^[16]