Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy

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Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy

• Dr. Ciara OFarrell
• Trinity College Dublin

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Workshop aims

• In this session we'll help you identify and
  articulate your teaching philosophy, provide
  examples of teaching philosophy statements, and
  spend time drafting your statement. 

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Learner Outcomes

• After this workshop you should be able to
• Recognise some of the purposes of teaching of
  philosophy statements
• Apply a structure to your statement
• Have a rough draft of your own philosophy of
  teaching statement

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Free writing and Discussion

• 5 minutes writing 5 minutes discussion
• Who is the best teacher you have ever known?
• What qualities made this person a great teacher?
• Do any of this teachers qualities appear in your
  own teaching? What specifically?

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What is a Statement of Teaching Philosophy?

• Codifies your thinking at a particular time
• Gives you a starting point to examine your
  teaching practices
• Allows you monitor your development as a teacher
• A personal document that should reflect and
  represent you as an individual

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Purposes

• Personal
• Professional
• Pedagogical
• Reflective

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Written for

• You
• Administrators
• Faculty
• Students

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Freewriting Activity

• Write for five minutes
• What do I believe about teaching?

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Some guiding questions

•    What do I believe about teaching?
•       What do I believe about learning? Why? How
  is that played out in my classroom?
•        What do I still struggle with in terms of
  teaching and student learning?
•        What motivates me to learn about this
  subject?
•        What are the opportunities and
  constraints under which I learn and others
  learn?
•        What do I expect to be the outcomes of my
  teaching?
•        What is the student-teacher relationship
  I strive to achieve?
•         How do I know when I have taught
  successfully?
•        What habits, attitudes, or methods mark
  my most successful teaching achievements?
• What values do I impart to my students?

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Some more guiding questions

• Has my approach to teaching changed?
• What role do my students play in the classroom
  (listeners? Co-discoverers? Peer teachers?)
• What have I learned about myself as a teacher?
• What excites me about my discipline?
• How has my research influenced my teaching?
• What does teaching mean to me (coaching, leading,
  guiding, telling, showing, mentoring. Modelling?)
• What teaching practices do I use and prefer
  (lecture, lead discussions, guide problem
  solving, provide demonstrations?)
• What are my plans for developing or improving my
  teaching? (learn new skills, try our new
  approaches?)

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Freewriting activity

• Write for five minutes.
• What do I believe about learning?

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Dos and Donts

• Dont
• Rehash your curriculum vitae
• Make empty statements I run a learner
• centred classroom
• Overload with information

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Do

• Keep it short
• Be relatively humble in tone (My student
  evaluations are consistently high rather than
  My students say Im the best teacher)
• Be reflective Talk about your mistakes and
  describe what youve learned from them to become
  better teachers
• Mention how students have reacted to your
  teaching innovations

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Freewriting Activity

• What is a personal best achievement for you as a
  teacher during the past two years?

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Remember

• It will be read by others so make it lively and
  interesting
• Keep your statement updated its ever-evolving

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What its not

• Not a utopian vision but an expression of a
  desired performance in the light of contextual
  reality

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Freewriting Activity

• Write for ten minutes
• Think of an activity that bombed in your
  classroom.
• Why do you think it didnt work?
• How would/did you change that activity?

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Freewriting Activity

• Think of an activity you used in class write a
  paragraph or two, answering the following
  questions
• What did I want my students to learn from this
  activity?
• How well did it work?
• How do I know how well it worked?
• What would I change next time and why?

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Instructional Goals

• What goals do you have for your learners?
• What can a student get out of your course?
• Why are these goals important?

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Three levels of educational goals

• What goals do you have for students as learners
  in the specific subject matter
• What goals do you have for students as learners
  in your area
• What goals to you have for students as learners
  in the general educational framework?

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Activity

• Group work
• Handout Read and comment on the handout Goals
  samples

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Activity 2 Goals

• Focus on one episode in teaching that epitomizes
  your goals and equally reflects your teaching.
•  
• Describe what is special about that episode and
  why or how it is representative of your other
  teaching

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Activity 3 Goals

• See handout Teaching Goals
• Self-scorable version available at
• www.uiowa.edu/centeach/tgi

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Design and Implementation

• How do you intend to establish these goals?
• (Teaching methods etc.)
• Alignment important design and implementation
  should reflect and be informed by your goals.

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Activity

• Group work
• Read and comment on the sample statements in the
  Instructional Design and Implementation handout

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Assessment and Evaluation

• Should measure how well you have achieved your
  goals.
• Achieve congruence between your instructional
  goals, instructional methods, and your assessment
  program.
• What types of assessment do you use and how are
  they effective for you?

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Documentation and Reflection

• A running commentary
• What have you learnt about student learning and
  how have you fed that back into your
  instructional practices?
• Demonstrate your desire to grow as a professional
  teacher

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Documentation and Reflection

• Do you have a live portfolio?
• Gather documentation over time that gives
  evidence of your goals, methods and assessments
• Build a case for the strategies you use
• Identify targets for improving your work.

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Activity

• Group work
• Read and discuss the document and reflection
  examples.

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Structure

• 1-2 pages long
• A personal narrative
• Evidence of your sincerely-held beliefs
• Representative of your experience and practice
• A showcase for your strengths
• A place that points to directions in your future
  growth
• An effective abstract for your teaching portfolio

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Various structural possibilities

• Title / Quote (optional) / Thesis statements/
  Narrative
• Or
• Theoretic framework / goals / design /
  implementation / assessment / evaluation
• Or

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Structural possibilities

• Descriptive What you do when you teach, types of
  activities you use when you are teaching
• Analytical Why you teach in the way you do, how
  your thinking about teaching has changed over
  time
• Empirical Experiences or observations of student
  learning on which your decisions about teaching
  are based

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Editing

• Are your teaching objectives clear, attainable
  and realistic?
• Are your teaching methods explicit?
• How do you measure effectiveness?

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Editing

• Should you work for greater clarity, by giving
  examples?
• What words reveal your teaching values?
• Are you knowledgeable without coming across as
  opinionated and dogmatic?
• What will a reader remember the most about this
  teaching philosophy statement?

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To do

• Build your literacy about learning and teaching
• Read some sample teaching statements
• Share and critique
• Edit for content, accuracy and style

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Remember

• Do not attempt to be perfect
• Include the future
• Write in a personal way

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Final writing activity

• Write for five minutes
• What do I have to do to finish this Teaching of
  Philosophy Statement?

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You might

• Take the Teaching Goals Inventory Online
• http//itsnt12.its.uiowa.edu/cft/tgi/FMPro?-dbtg
  i.data_.fp5-formattgi.data.entry.html-view
• Take the teaching perspectives Inventory
• http//teachingperspectives.com/html/tpi_form_engl
  ish_v1.htm

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Further Reading

• Statements of Teaching Philosophy
  http//www.utep.edu/cetal/pub/stofteac.html
• Teaching portfolios/ describing your teaching
  philosophy www.umdnj.edu/meg/career_portfolios.htm
  
• Sample statements www.utep.edu/cetal/portfoli/sa
  mples.htm
• See the Teaching of Philosophy Page on the CAPSL
  website.