Teaching Philosophy

• Stimulate and promote reflection on teaching
• Clarify and guide teaching learning practices
• Improve and revise teaching and learning practices
• Foster dedication toward goals and values
• Document and provide evidence of successful teaching and student learning
• Provide opportunities for personal and professional development
• Foster reflection on professional growth
• Center students’ strengths and needs
• Commit to students’ learning and growth through asset-based practices

• Academic job applications
• Promotion and tenure
• Faculty candidate application packages, portfolios, and dossiers
• Teaching awards or fellowships
• Funding for educational projects
• Course syllabi and teaching materials

• Think about your own experiences as a student, what was significant or meaningful about your learning experiences that impact how you view and value good teaching? 
• What are your reasons for teaching? Who or what inspired you to teach?
• Why is teaching and learning important to you? What does teaching and learning mean to you?
• What type of learning environment do you try to create? How do you see your role and your students' role in the educational space?
• What knowledge, skills, or beliefs do you attempt to foster with your students and how do you support them?
• What types of teaching and learning strategies do you use to foster student learning, such as active learning, culturally relevant teaching, inquiry-based learning, team-based learning, etc.? Why do you use these strategies to support student learning?
• What types of feedback and assessment strategies do you use to help students achieve your desired objectives? How are these feedback and assessment strategies aligned to your objectives and course learning outcomes?
• What types of professional development activities help you grow as a teacher?
• How do you continuously reflect and revise teaching and learning practices informed by student learning experiences, student feedback on your teaching and learning practices, student performance on assignments and assessments, and/or other student-informed data?

• Between one and two pages long
• A personal narrative
• Evidence of personal beliefs and values
• Representative of experience and practice
• Evidence of student learning, growth, and needs
• Showcase teaching and learning successes and challenges
• Centers growth and continuous improvement of teaching and learning

1. Define what good teaching means to you and how you developed this stance—you may want to share an anecdote from when you were a student or a teacher who had a meaningful impact on your learning as a way to frame good teaching and how you developed it.
2. Discuss your teaching and learning methods, strategies, practices—here you may want to explore what you value in your teaching and learning strategies and why, such as collaborative learning, reflection, team work, inquiry-based research, culturally relevant teaching, active learning strategies, etc. What do these strategies help you accomplish? How do they allow you to better understand your students’ learning experiences and needs? How do they help student learning and growth?
3. Explain feedback and assessment practices—here you may want to discuss how you assess student learning and why you value those assessment methods. Particularly, you may want to explore how you provide feedback to student learning in formative ways that allow for student learning and growth. For instance, if you value students’ self-assessments on the learning and growth because you want to understand students’ intentions and want to ensure they have a voice in assessment processes, you can explore how these practices are linked to the learning outcomes of the course and student learning and growth.
4. Provide examples and description of how your teaching methods and feedback and assessment practices support your views of good teaching—examples are incredibly valuable—think about describing a specific assignment or a specific activity that allows you to represent your values as well as feedback and assessment choices. You might consider an example of a student’s project in response to an assignment you designed, including their reflections on what they learned.
5. Describe your students, specifically their assets, strengths, and how you aim to understand their background, inquiries, curiosity as learning resources—who are the students you teach? How do you see them? What do you learn from them? How do you center who they are and their strengths as part of the learning process? How do you center their prior knowledge and cultural wealth as assets in the learning process? How do you provide spaces for self-growth, agency, and self-advocacy in learning?
6. Explain your teaching goals in relation to your students learning and your professional growth—be honest as teaching is ever evolving—we are always growing and learning as we try out new approaches and as we aim to understand each one of our students’ strengths and needs and our own evolving teaching and learning growth.

References and Other Sources

Axelrod, R. B., & Cooper, C. R. (1993). Reading critically, writing well: A reader and guide (3rd ed.). New York, NY: St. Martin’s.

Cavazos, A.G.,Trejo, C., Cavazos-Vela, J.,Garza-Ochoa, S., Martin, Y., & Racelis, A. (2022). Teaching Philosophy Statements: The Impact of a Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Faculty Learning Community at a Hispanic Serving Institution, Journal of Latinos and Education, DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2022.2149530 

Chism, N. V. (1998). Developing a philosophy of teaching statement. Essays on Teaching Excellence, 9, 1-2. Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.

Coppola, B. P. (2002). Writing a statement of teaching philosophy: Fashioning a framework for your classroom. Journal of College Science Teaching, 31, 448.

Goodyear, G. E., & Allchin, D. (1998). Statement of teaching philosophy. In M. Kaplan (Ed.), To improve the academy (pp. 103-122). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Hegarty, N. (2015). The growing importance of teaching philosophy statements and what they mean for the future: Why teaching philosophy statements will affect you. Journal of Adult Education, 44, 28.

Kaplan, M., O’Neal, C., Meizlish, D., Carillo, R. & Kardia, D. (n.d.). Rubric for statements of teaching philosophy. 

Kearns, K. D. and Sullivan, C. S. (2011). Resources and practices to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows write statements of teaching philosophy. Advances in Physiology Education, 35, 136-145.

Landrum, R. E., & Clump, M. A. (2004). Departmental search committees and the evaluation of faculty applicants. Teaching of Psychology, 31, 12-17.

Schönwetter, D. J., Sokal, L., Friesen, M., & Taylor, K.L. (2002). Teaching philosophies reconsidered: A conceptual model for the development and evaluation of teaching philosophy statements. International Journal of Academic Development, 7, 83-97.

The University of Texas at Austin Faculty Innovation Center (2017). Teaching statement. Retrieved from https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/opportunities/prof-dev/statement

Weimer, M. (2011). Writing better teaching philosophy statements. The Teaching Professor, 25, 6.

Helpful Articles

4 Steps to a Memorable Teaching Philosophy 

How to Write a Statement of Philosophy

Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search

Writing Your Teaching Philosophy 

CTE Workshop 

PPT Presentation

Rubric to Evaluate Statement of Teaching Philosophy