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.
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
Free writing and Discussion5 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 teacher’s qualities appear in your own teaching? What specifically?
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
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?
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?)
Dos and Don’ts
Don’t
Rehash your curriculum vitae Make empty statements “I run a
learnercentred classroom”
Overload with information
Do
Keep it short Be relatively humble in tone (“My student
evaluations are consistently high” rather than “My students say I’m the best teacher”)
Be reflective: Talk about your mistakes and describe what you’ve learned from them to become better teachers
Mention how students have reacted to your teaching innovations
Freewriting Activity
What is a personal best achievement for you as a teacher during the past two years?
Remember
It will be read by others so make it lively and interesting
Keep your statement updated – it’s ever-evolving
What it’s not:
Not a utopian vision but an expression of a desired performance in the light of contextual reality
Freewriting Activity
Write for ten minutes:Think of an activity that bombed in
your classroom. Why do you think it didn’t work? How would/did you change that
activity?
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?
Instructional Goals
What goals do you have for your learners?
What can a student get out of your course?
Why are these goals important?
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?
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
Activity 3: Goals
See handout: Teaching Goals Self-scorable version available at:
www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi
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.
Activity
Group work Read and comment on the sample
statements in the Instructional Design and Implementation handout
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?
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
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.
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
Various structural possibilities:
Title / Quote (optional) / Thesis statements/ Narrative
OrTheoretic framework / goals / design / implementation / assessment / evaluation…
Or
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
Editing
Are your teaching objectives clear, attainable and realistic?
Are your teaching methods explicit?
How do you measure effectiveness?
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?
To do:
Build your literacy about learning and teaching
Read some sample teaching statements
Share and critique Edit for content, accuracy and
style
Final writing activity:
Write for five minutes: What do I have to do to finish this
Teaching of Philosophy Statement?
You might…
Take the Teaching Goals Inventory Online:
http://itsnt12.its.uiowa.edu/cft/tgi/FMPro?-db=tgi.data_.fp5&-format=tgi.data.entry.html&-view
Take the teaching perspectives Inventory
http://teachingperspectives.com/html/tpi_form_english_v1.htm
Further Reading“Statements of Teaching Philosophy”:
http://www.utep.edu/cetal/pub/stofteac.htmlTeaching portfolios/ describing your
teaching philosophy www.umdnj.edu/meg/career_portfolios.htm
Sample statements: www.utep.edu/~cetal/portfoli/samples.htm
See the Teaching of Philosophy Page on the CAPSL website.