Develop a Teaching Philosophy

A teaching philosophy statement is a concise document in which you express your beliefs about teaching and learning and describe how you put those beliefs into practice. The content of your statement depends in part on the context in which you are using the statement.

General Considerations for a Teaching Philosophy Statement

Your teaching philosophy statement should express your core beliefs about teaching and learning. These should be big ideas that are relatively permanent and apply across the different courses you teach or will teach. Use this portion of your statement to express your values about teaching and learning.

For example, you might frame a statement around student choice by indicating that you give your students options in terms of assignments, assessments, or topics, and then explain why offering student choice is valuable and useful.

Your teaching philosophy statement should also include specific, concrete examples of your practice, and these examples should be coherent with your core beliefs. Considering again a statement framed around student choice, you could describe in detail an element of your course where student choice plays a role. Perhaps you explain the purpose of a final project, and then indicate in detail what options students have in fulfilling the final project.

Beyond core beliefs and specific examples, your statement could include your thoughts on student assessment, the value and importance of what you teach, and how your teaching complements other aspects of your professional role.

Teaching Philosophy Statements for a Faculty Job Search

In addition to the general considerations for a teaching philosophy statement, if you are developing a teaching philosophy statement for a faculty job search you must recognize that your statement is likely in competition with many other statements. So your core beliefs, in addition to being true, should stand out and be easy to remember. Your examples, in addition to being coherent with your core beliefs, must paint a picture of yourself as a teacher that will cause your reader to want to have you teaching at their institution. Your statement should also be somewhat short, because your statement is likely part of a stack of dozens of similar statements, and you can derive some advantage by making your statement easy for the reader to get through.

CITL offers a workshop on developing your teaching philosophy statement for a faculty job search, so keep an eye on the CITL calendar for that. Also, this Illinois blog post features resources from that workshop.

Teaching Philosophy Statements for Promotion or Tenure

In addition to the general considerations for a teaching philosophy statement, if you are developing a teaching philosophy statement for promotion or tenure you should emphasize the value your teaching has brought to the institution. Be especially sure to indicate how students have benefitted from your teaching, and how your program, department, college, or university have also benefitted.

In a teaching philosophy statement for promotion or tenure, it is very important for your concrete examples to come from your experience at the institution, involving the institution’s students. It is also quite useful to indicate how your teaching philosophy interacts with other aspects of your role at the institution.

Teaching Philosophy Statements for Other Purposes

You might need a teaching philosophy statement when being considered for a teaching award, as part of a larger teaching portfolio, or for other purposes. The general considerations for teaching philosophy statements likely still apply, and you will have to use your judgement to determine which other elements of your philosophy you should stress in these contexts. You can always schedule an individual consultation with CITL to review your teaching philosophy statement.

Communication #9 language on teaching philosophy:

Candidate Teaching Statement – The candidate must provide (in three or fewer pages) a personal statement on their teaching activity. This guided, structured statement should describe the arc of the candidate’s course instruction and other contributions to teaching and learning since either starting their position at the university or their last promotion. The statement should answer the following questions and relate the answers to the detailed criteria in the Definition of Teaching Excellence. All questions except the last one refer to course-based teaching.

• What were your primary goals in teaching, and why were those goals important to you?
• What methods have you used to accomplish your teaching goals, and why?
• What challenges have you faced in your teaching, and how did you work to overcome those challenges? What have been your areas of most improvement?
• What have been your areas of greatest success in teaching?
• What are your goals for teaching in the future? Where do you see your greatest potential for further improvement?
• How have your activities outside of course-based teaching (student advising and other activities) contributed to teaching, learning, and student success?

Communication #26 language on teaching philosophy:

Teaching Statement. Candidates for promotion must provide a teaching statement of no more than three pages, discussing their teaching philosophy, the arc of their course instruction, and other contributions they have made to teaching and learning. While the statement may include teaching at another institution, the focus should be on activities undertaken since starting their position at the Urbana campus or since their last promotion. The statement should also take care to address the following topics in relation to the detailed criteria in the Definition of Teaching Excellence:

• The candidate’s primary goals in teaching, and why were those goals are important.
• The methods used to accomplish these teaching goals, and why they were chosen.
• Efforts made to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the teaching context.
• Methods used to choose and update teaching materials.
• Challenges the candidate faced in their teaching, and how they overcame them.
• Areas of greatest success and areas of most improvement.
• Future teaching goals and areas for further improvement.
• How activities outside of course-based teaching (student advising and other activities) have contributed to the candidate’s teaching and learning, and to their students’ success.

This teaching statement is important in part because it provides contextual information for peer and external evaluators who are asked for and provide written opinions about the candidate. It allows evaluators to develop their own judgments considering the candidate’s vision, goals, and self-assessment of progress. For this reason, the candidate’s unit is encouraged to ask the candidate to complete their teaching statement early in the evaluation process, so that it can be shared with peer observers and external letter writers before their assessments take place.

In addition to the teaching statement, candidates may consider including video recordings of their teaching in their portfolio for the benefit of the peer and external evaluators.