About 6 years ago, I remember receiving a stack of resumes for a math teaching job. We were looking to hire someone to join our department, and there were so many resumes and cover letters to go through. Over 50, maybe around 100. And my eyes started glazing over. The resumes looked similar, and the cover letters were banal. And then: one applicant stuck out.
It was a cover letter that gave a link to a really simple website, and on that website was an educational philosophy, a few sample tests, and some student work. Although it was pretty basic, what I liked was that on that simple site I got a much better sense of who this candidate was. I loved the idea. And I decided then and there that I would create my own teaching portfolio online that would capture who I was as a teacher.
This past summer, I did it.
To be clear: this isn’t a reflective teacher portfolio. It’s a descriptive teacher portfolio. It is something that I put together — a mishmash of snippets — that together hopefully gives a solid sense of who I am, what I do, what I believe in. I think calling it a visual teaching resume or a wunderkammer best describes it. (Click on the image to go to the site.)
There are a few missing things that I would like to add to this site at some oint:
- I would like to add everyday samples of student work. Not projects. Just everyday stuffs.
- I would like to add a section about the two week history of science course I designed and implemented with another teacher this year. (See Days 80-87 on my 180 blog for more.)
- I would like to add a section about the “Explore Math” project (more info here and here) I did in Precalculus this year.
- I would like to finish the student quotation page. I actually have quotations typed for a number of previous years, but I do not have more recent years ready.
It was pretty simple to make (I used the free website creator weebly) and I hope if I ever were to go on the job market, it would catch the eyes of whoever had the giant stack of cover letters and resumes in front of them. I wasn’t really going to make a post about my visual resume, or share it with anyone, because I thought: who would care?
But heck: maybe someone out there is going on the job market and thinks the idea is worth replicating? So I decided to post.
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 
I’m so glad you posted it, Sam; it is a great idea and it’s going on my to-do list. Thanks for sharing how you did it, and your thoughts on the components.
This is such a phenomenal idea- the concept and the sharing. I always wonder how I could possibly communicate my passion for math education on a resume. Thanks so much!
That is amazing!
THANK YOU for this amazing idea. Yours is a work of art. I didn’t have time, so I just filled up a live binder. But I still feel that it really helped me.