Teaching Philosophy Statement Guide (Faculty Roles)
Your teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning. It’s a one to two page narrative that conveys your core ideas about being an effective teacher in the context of your discipline. It develops these ideas with specific, concrete examples of what the teacher and learners will do to achieve those goals. Importantly, your teaching philosophy statement also explains why you choose these options (University of Minnesota, 2022).
Steps to Writing a Successful Teaching Statement:
University of Minnesota’s Center for Educational Innovation includes a step by step guide to writing a successful Teaching Philosophy Statement. They have a section on Getting Started, Crafting a Draft, Assessing Your Draft, and Rubrics and Samples. They list some really good questions to prompt your thinking when starting your draft.
Questions to prompt your thinking
Your goals for students:
What knowledge, skills, and attitudes should students obtain as a result of your teaching? What goals do you have for specific classes or curricula and what is the rationale behind them (i.e., critical thinking, writing, or problem solving)?
Positionality:
Consider your multiple and intersecting identities. Consider both dominant and marginalized identities. How do they inform your teaching? How might different power dynamics show up?
Your concept of learning:
What do you mean by learning? What happens in a successful learning situation? Note what constitutes “learning” or “mastery” in your discipline.
Your concept of teaching:
What are your values, beliefs, and aspirations as a teacher? Do you wish to encourage mastery, competency, transformational learning, lifelong learning, general transference of skills, critical thinking? What does a meaningful teaching situation look like to you and why? How are your teaching values and beliefs realized in classroom activities (i.e., discuss your course materials, lesson plans, and activities)?
Your teaching methods:
What methods will you consider to reach these goals and objectives? What are your beliefs regarding learning theory and specific strategies you would use, such as case studies, group work, simulations, and interactive lectures? How are these methods appropriate to your discipline? How do you know when you’ve taught effectively? What new ideas or strategies do you want to try?
Your approach to using Generative AI (GenAI):
How do you think about GenAI in relation to student learning? What are you excited and concerned about related to GenAI and how do you communicate that to students? How does your approach to GenAI align within your discipline?
Your interaction with students:
Why do you want to work with students? What are your attitudes towards advising and mentoring students? How would an observer see you interacting with students?
Creating an inclusive learning environment:
How do you create a sense of belonging for students in your classroom? How do you incorporate and engage diverse perspectives in your teaching? How do you establish norms for an inclusive learning environment? What is your approach to promoting student health and well-being? What classroom procedures and structures support the varied needs of your students?
Assessing learning:
How will you assess student growth and learning? What are your beliefs about feedback and grading? What different types of assessment will you use (i.e., traditional tests, projects, portfolios, presentations) and why? Which new approaches to assessment do you want to try and why?
Professional growth:
How will you continue growing as a teacher? What goals do you have for yourself and how will you reach them? How have your attitudes towards teaching and learning changed over time? How will you use student feedback to improve your teaching?
Do’s and Don’ts
Cornell University’s Graduate School has also included a helpful guide to develop a teaching statement philosophy. They made a list of Do’s and Don’ts:
- Don’t give idyllic but empty concepts.
- Don’t repeat your CV.
- Do research on the teaching institution and disciplinary trends.
- Do keep it short (one to two pages).
- Do provide concrete examples and evidence of usefulness of teaching concepts.
- Do discuss impact of methods, lessons learned, challenges, and innovations—how did students learn?
- Do discuss connections between teaching, research, and service.
Beyond the Professoriate’s Guide to Writing a Teaching Statement
Beyond the Professoriate’s The Teaching Statement lesson (30 minutes) goes over what a teaching statement is, the materials you need to gather, how to use your materials to reflect on your teaching, basics of writing teaching statements, writing tips (e.g. being specific), as well as example paragraphs from a teaching statement. You can watch the video and draft your own teaching statement by following the activities in the Apply for Faculty Jobs workbook (pg. 15-18).
Here are some ways to get you started:
- Start with a reflection (prior to drafting the document). What are your core beliefs about how students learn best? Think about moments that shaped your teaching whether this was through a successful lesson, a challenge you encountered, or student feedback.
- Focus on evidence and examples. Move beyond general statements to concrete examples (e.g. I created an inclusive environment by doing X).
- Align the teaching statement with the institution’s mission and the students they serve. For teaching-intensive colleges: emphasize inclusive pedagogy, mentorship, and community engagement. For research universities: highlight how your teaching complements your research and how you mentor students in scholarly work. (Review the department’s website or teaching center materials to understand their values.)
