Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement

Dr Ciara O’Farrell CAPSL Trinity College Dublin

The information contained on this web page accompanies the CAPSL workshop,
“Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement” facilitated by Ciara O’Farrell,
Academic Developer who will take you through the process of writing a
Statement, help you articulate your Teaching Philosophy, examine some
structural and content issues, and begin an initial draft statement.

What is a Teaching Philosophy Statement?

This statement of reflection is a philosophical framework of your personal
approach to teaching and the rationale behind what guides your practice i.e.
What impacts on you as an educator and how it influences your teaching. It may
be written for a variety of purposes: promotional, pedagogical, personal, political,
reflective or professional. Whatever your motivation for composing a statement
about your approach to teaching, it should achieve the following:

• Provide evidence of your sincerely-held beliefs

• Codify your pedagogical thinking at a particular time
• Examine your teaching practices
• Monitor your development as a teacher

How long should it be?

This depends on the purpose of your statement but ideally no longer than 1-2
pages (400-800 words)

What is the purpose of my Statement and who is the reader?

Like any piece of writing, your teaching philosophy statement will change
according to its purpose. If your document is public, keep your primary reader in
mind: what does your reader know about you and your position? What does
he/she need to know? Always include any specific information required by your
reader; however, don’t be tempted to make your statement read like a curriculum
vitae - a teaching philosophy statement is not a utopian vision but a sincere
personal expression situated within the contextual reality in which you teach.

Provide evidence of your sincerely-held beliefs

A teaching philosophy statement should provide scholarly evidence of your
sincerely held-beliefs. Thus, avoid empty statements without backing them up.
(So if you say, “I run a learner-centred classroom”, make sure you show how you
do this.)

If a statement accompanies a Teaching Portfolio, you will have potential to

expand on your beliefs and to show them in practice. If it is a stand-alone
document you do not have this opportunity. It is therefore important to give
examples to illustrate your beliefs – a teaching method, a particular assessment

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 1 CAPSL

that worked well, or an activity that encourages learning. Even a stand-alone
statement needs to be aligned and consistent.

Where do I begin?

1. Read some samples:

A good place to begin is to read some sample documents written by other
University staff members and teachers. Remember that every statement is a
personal view, and therefore different. There are many examples on the web, of
varying quality, but it’s worth browsing.

The following PDF contains some excerpts, and full statements for your perusal.
Please note that these are not chosen for their excellence, but to show you the
range of choices of styles, structures and content that comprise teaching
philosophy statements.

When you read through the extracts, think about the following:

• Are the author’s personal beliefs about learning and teaching cogent?
• Does theory inform practice?
• What words reveal the writer’s teaching values?
• What will you remember most about this statement?

Sample Teaching Philosophies

2. Take the Online Teaching Goals Inventory:

This inventory asks you to think of a particular course you are currently teaching.
It lists 52 goals that you have to rank as to how valuable each one is to your aims
for your students in a particular course. It then gives you a detailed table
containing your results in specific clusters.

What is useful about this inventory is that it can help you define your primary role
as a teacher. The goals may also spark some ideas with you about specific skills
you would like to write about in your statement.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi/

3. Take the Teaching Perspectives Inventory:

Similarly, this inventory may help you to identify your perspectives on teaching.
http://teachingperspectives.com/html/tpi_form_english_v1.htm

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 2 CAPSL

4. Build your literacy about learning and teaching:

While there is a lack of research on teaching philosophy statements, contact

CAPSL for recommended books on Higher Education, Learning and Teaching,
and the Scholarship of Teaching which will help build your literacy in this area.

A good starting point for teaching philosophy statements is the following article
written by Gail Goodyear, the Director of the Center for Effective Teaching and
Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso, and Douglas Allchin, an historian
and philosopher of biology.

Abstract: Well-defined teaching philosophy is essential to creating and

maintaining a campus culture supportive of teaching. Presented in this paper are
reasons for statements of teaching philosophy as well as descriptions of how the
statements are beneficial to students, faculty, and university administrations.
Described are ways of creating a statement of teaching philosophy and
dimensions that may be included in such statements. This article begins a
discussion of roles, composition, and evaluation of statements of teaching
philosophy.

http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=32483

Other recommended articles on Teaching Philosophy Statements include:

Chism, 1998), “Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement,” Essays on

Teaching Excellence 9 (3), 1-2. Professional and Organizational Development
Network in Higher Education.

Goodyear, G. E. & Allchin, D. (1998) Statement of teaching philosophy. To

Improve the Academy 17, 103-22. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Schonwetter, D.J. Sokal, L., Friesen, M. and Taylor, K.L. (2002). Teaching
philosophies reconsidered: A conceptual model for the development and
evaluation of teaching philosophy statements. The International Journal for
Academic Development, 7(1), 83-97.

What content can I include in my Teaching Philosophy Statement?

Above all, a Teaching Philosophy is a personal statement and as such must
avoid cliché. The hub of the statement should show what you believe about
teaching, and how you apply those beliefs.

There are many guiding questions that can be included in a teaching philosophy
statement. Because of length restrictions, it is not advisable to squeeze too

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 3 CAPSL

much information into your statement. However, reflecting on some questions
below may help you in beginning to articulate your approaches:

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 are my goals as a teacher?
• What demonstrates my desire to grow as a teacher?
• 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?
• 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?)
• 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?)

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 4 CAPSL

How do I structure my statement?
The choice is large. Look at examples of statements to get some ideas. A
Statement may just be a well-organised group of paragraphs, or it may follow a
structure or theme such as:

„ 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
„ Title / Thesis (declarative) statement/ Narrative
„ Theoretic framework: goals / design / implementation / assessment /
evaluation…

Chism’s five components: (extracted from Ohio State University:

http://ftad.osu.edu/portfolio/philosophy/Phil_guidance.html) In her article (Chism,
1998), “Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement,” Nancy Chism, former
Director of Faculty & TA Development at The Ohio State University, suggests five
major components.

1. Conceptualization of learning
Ask yourself such questions as “What do we mean by learning?” and “What
happens in a learning situation?” Think of your answers to these questions based
on your personal experience. Chism points out that some teachers have tried to
express and explain their understanding of learning through the use of metaphor,
because drawing comparisons with known entities can stimulate thinking,
whether or not the metaphor is actually used in the statement. On the other hand,
most instructors tend to take a more direct approach in conceptualizing learning,
i.e., to describe what they think occurs during a learning episode, based on their
observation and experience or based on current literature on teaching and
learning.

2. Conceptualization of teaching
Ask yourself questions such as “What do we mean by teaching?” and “How do I
facilitate this process as a teacher?” Chism suggests that personal teaching
beliefs on how the instructor facilitates the learning process would be appropriate
for this section. Again, the metaphor format can be used, but a common practice
is a more direct description of the nature of a teacher with respect to motivating
and facilitating learning. Along with the questions above, you may also address
such issues as how to challenge students intellectually and support them
academically and how the teacher can respond to different learning styles, help
students who are frustrated, and accommodate different abilities. Furthermore,
you may talk about how you as a teacher have come to these conclusions (e.g.,

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 5 CAPSL

through past experience as a student or teacher, or as a result of literature
reading or taking classes).

3. Goals for students

This section should entail the description of what skills the teacher expects
her/his students to obtain as the result of learning. You may address such issues
as what goals you set for your classes, what the rationale behind them is, what
kind of activities you try to implement in class in order to reach these goals, and
how the goals have changed over time as you learn more about teaching and
learning. For instance, you can describe how you have expected students to
learn not only the content, but also skills such as critical thinking, writing, and
problem solving, followed by elaboration on how you have designed/planned
individual sessions towards accomplishing the goals.

4. Implementation of the philosophy

An important component of the statement of a teaching philosophy should be the
illustration of how one’s concepts about teaching and learning and goals for
students are transformed into classroom activities. Ask yourself, “How do I
operationalize my philosophy of teaching in the classroom?” and “What personal
characteristics in myself or my students influence the way in which I approach
teaching?” To answer these questions, you may reflect on how you present
yourself and course materials, what activities, assignments, and projects you
implement in the teaching-learning process, how you interact with students in
and outside class, and the consequences.

5. Professional growth plan

It is important for teachers to continue professional growth, and to do so,
teachers need to set clear goals and means to accomplish these goals. Think
about questions such as “What goals have I set for myself as a teacher?” and
“How do I accomplish these goals?” You can elaborate this plan in your
statement of teaching philosophy. For instance, you can illustrate how you have
professionally grown over the years, what challenges exist at the present, what
long-term development goals you have projected, and what you will do to reach
these goals. Chism suggests that writing this section can help you think about
how your perspectives and actions have changed over time.

In summary, these are the main questions Chism suggests to answer in a

statement:

• How do people learn?

• How do I facilitate that learning?
• What goals do I have for my students?
• Why do I teach the way that I do?
• What do I do to implement these ideas about teaching and learning in the
classroom?
• Are these things working? Do my student meet the goals?

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 6 CAPSL

 • How do I know they are working?
• What are my future goals for growth as a teacher?

Goodyear and Allchin’s structure: (extracted from Ohio State University:

http://ftad.osu.edu/portfolio/philosophy/Phil_guidance.html)

Gail Goodyear and Douglas Allchin (1998) have made suggestions for structuring
the statement of teaching philosophy in a somewhat different way than Chism.

1. Integration of responsibilities. Teaching, research, and public service are

the main missions of university faculty. Each teacher therefore should explicitly
describe what they do in carrying out these three missions in their statements of
teaching philosophy.

2. Expertise. It is important for faculty to link their special knowledge or expertise

in the field to ways of helping their students learn that knowledge and
communicate with students effectively during this teaching-learning process.

3. Relationships. A healthy relationship between the teacher and students is

“essential to successful teaching.” Ways in which a teacher establishes such a
relationship, such as getting to know students, specific ways of building rapport
with students, and special teaching techniques used, should be explicitly
described in his or her statement of teaching philosophy.

4. Learning environment. In conjunction with the previous issue, the authors

suggest that teachers can illustrate what they have done to create a supportive
learning environment in their classes socially, psychologically, and physically to
help students learn.

5. Methods, strategies, and innovation. Faculty should use teaching

philosophy statements to reflect on their teaching practice, both past and
present, as well as to illustrate how special teaching techniques they use are in
compliance with their teaching philosophy.

6. Outcomes. Teachers can demonstrate in their statements of teaching

philosophy how the previous efforts have produced anticipated outcomes. For
example, students have learned the subject matter and they are able to use the
knowledge learned in class to solve real-world problems.

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 7 CAPSL

 Remember to edit your document:
Like any written document, it is important to proofread for style and to edit for
content and clarity. A good idea is to circle those words that reveal your
teaching values and gauge:

• Are these really important to you?

• Have you measured their effectiveness?
• Should you work for greater clarity, by giving examples?

A final exercise is to think about what a reader will remember the most about
this teaching philosophy statement? Is this what you want them to remember?

And when it’s finished?

Finally, remember teaching philosophy statement is a dynamic document,
and one that will change and grow as your academic development does. As
such it’s never really finished; rather a document that you will return to again
and again as you reflect on your teaching.

Dr. Ciara O’Farrell 8 CAPSL