Sisyphus at Academic Cog asks, "What the hell is a statement of teaching philosophy?" She adds, "These make no sense to me."


In brief, for the uninitiated: statements of teaching philosophy are one of many documents that candidates for faculty jobs may be asked to provide with their application. They are meant to demonstrate that a candidate has reflected meaningfully on teaching and put that reflection into practice.

Larry asks the same question as Sisyphus at The University of the Blogosphere. In the comments, Tiruncula of Practica notes, "my teaching philosophy is that teaching philosophies ARE STUPID and this should be a site of resistance."


Also in the comments, meg of xoom opines,

Teaching philosophies are utter crap.

I've spend 15 or more years of my life suggesting to students that if their writing contains nothing that can be disagreed with, it didn't deserve to be put in writing in the first place, and then I turned around and wrote smarmy, undebatable bilge for departments that ought to know better. It soiled my soul, I tell you.

At Breeding Ground of the Plutocracy U., we were encouraged not to apply to any school that asked for a TP.

New Kid added to the comments on this post:

They all sound the same - everyone wants students to play an active role in their own learning, everyone wants to be the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage, etc. etc. - even if the authors don't really do that stuff (and I don't even mean they're being duplicitous, I just think a lot of people think they do that stuff when they don't, me probably included). Really, I think the only way that a TP is useful to a search committee is for ruling out true lunatics, and most of those probably stand out for other reasons anyway.

Back over at Academic Cog, Sisyphus asks for advice. Check out the comments on her post for some great advice, including from the always-helpful Dr. Crazy, Dance, and Belle. Go check them out.


Pseudonymous Grad Student gives us a glimpse behind the search committee door (as well as some of the better professorial pseudonyms I've seen for quite a while):

The Old World Septuagenarian, and, really, the rest of the senior faculty, had no fucking idea what a teaching philosophy was. They'd never written one. In fact, Evil Columbo made it clear they never even read them when candidates for jobs in my department send them.

The Fretful Porpentine brings a new perspective to the discussion:

Is it just me, or should statements of teaching philosophy contain the word "chicken" more often? I mean, everyone says, "I practice student-centered pedagogy" (yawn...), but how many people can say they practice chicken-centered pedagogy?

As someone who works in a teaching resources center, part of my job is helping people write better statements of teaching philosophy. While your mileage may vary depending on your discipline, my general advice includes:

1. Show you're familiar with some of the current ideas about teaching and then state how your own ideal classroom falls in line with or diverges from those ideas. For example, you might say that you believe in a student-centered classroom. You should build on this (much overused) catchphrase by explaining what you mean by it because different instructors will implement student-centeredness in different ways and to different degrees.

2. Give concrete examples of how you have (or will) put those ideals into practice in your classroom. If you asked students to help you create an essay prompt and grading rubric for the midterm, say so, and give specific examples of how this exercise made for better teaching and learning.

3. Explain how you evaluated (or will evaluate) these teaching practices. If you had written your own essay prompts in the past and your students failed miserably at addressing them, you probably shouldn't say so. But you could say that you noted marked improvement in the ways students responded to course content.

What are your experiences and advice?

Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.