What to Include in an Appendix?

Items included in your dossier’s appendices should be selected to complement the portrait of your teaching developed in the narrative section. As noted above, the appendices should provide specific examples or pieces of evidence of the claims about your teaching that you make in the narrative section, provide evidence of your teaching strengths, and document your efforts at teaching improvement. Ideally, every document you include in an appendix will have been mentioned in the narrative section of your dossier. Note: Appendices should reflect judicious selection and avoid including too much information.

Possible items that can serve as valuable appendices:

• Course materials: Samples of syllabi, communications with students, lecture notes or slides, outlines of class activities. See Section 7: Teaching Responsibilities for more details about which course materials can be useful to include.
• Student assessment: Samples of assignment and examination descriptions and instructions, marked assignments (perhaps demonstrating the improved work of a student over the course of a semester or year).
• Feedback on teaching: Full digests of qualitative course evaluation comments; solicited and unsolicited written feedback on teaching from students, colleagues, and teaching support staff.
• Professional development: Copies of certificates of attendance or completion, workshop descriptions, and examples of course materials that employ ideas or strategies gained through professional development activities.
• Teaching research and scholarship: Copies of journal or newsletter articles, grant applications, and descriptions of conference presentations.

You might organize your appendices based on the sections of the narrative dossier (e.g. Teaching Responsibilities, Professional Development, Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness) or by the materials included in the appendices (e.g. feedback on teaching, course materials, student assessment, etc.).

Your supporting materials should not speak for themselves. Each piece (or collection of pieces) of evidence should be labeled and introduced by a brief (1-2 paragraph) contextualizing statement that illustrates its connection to the claims made about your teaching in the narrative section of the dossier.

For example, if you include an example of an assignment developed for a course you’ve substantially revised, you might describe the ways in which the assignment reflects your approach to teaching described in your statement of teaching philosophy. Similarly, you might highlight particular examples of student work that affirm the improvement in particular skills that you’ve described in your description of assessment methods.

Even if you have already provided this contextualization within the dossier, provide a brief reminder to your reader of the significance of each piece of supporting documentation within the appendix itself.