The teaching philosophy (or teaching statement) is becoming a more common part of academic life for both faculty and graduate students. Graduate students report that colleges and universities often request statements from applicants for faculty positions. Faculty at an increasing number of institutions must develop a teaching statement as they approach tenure and promotion. Instructors at all levels find that writing their statement helps them develop as teachers, since it entails making their implicit views on teaching and student learning explicit and comparing those views to actual teaching practice.

CRLT RESOURCES

CRLT Occasional Paper #23, Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search, (O’Neal, Meizlish, and Kaplan, 2007)

Rubric for Statements of Teaching Philosophy (Kaplan, O'Neal, Meizlish, Carillo, and Kardia, 2005)

Examples of Teaching Philosophies from U-M Graduate Students

Please also see:

• Teaching Portfolios and Course Portfolios
• Schedule a CRLT consultation about your teaching philosophy & statement

EXTERNAL RESOURCES

Teaching Philosophies

• 4 Steps to a Memorable Teaching Philosophy, James Lang, The Chronicle of Higher Education (29 August 2010)
• Tip sheet: Instructions for a Teaching Statement Peer Review Workshop (Harvard University - Google Doc)
• Writing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement (Ohio State University) includes descriptions, purpose, major components, and examples across disciplines)
• Writing Your Teaching Philosophy: A Step-by-Step Approach (University of Minnesota)

The Job Market

• Kelsky, K. (2015). The professor is in: The essential guide to turning your Ph. D. into a job. Written by the author of the popular website on grad school and the job market, this e-book offers advice across the full range of the search process (UM authentication required).
• The Job Market (Harvard University) offers descriptions, recommendations and goals of teaching statements for current and future faculty. It includes links and exercises to help readers reflect upon their teaching philosophy.
• Walsh, K. P., Pottmeyer, L. O., Meizlish, D., & Hershock, C. (2022). How search committees assess teaching: Lessons for CTLs. This research study reports on data from search committee chairs in nine disciplines at variety of institutional types about how search committees evaluate teaching effectiveness.

FURTHER READING ON TEACHING STATEMENTS

• Corrall, Sheila (2017) Developing a Teaching Philosophy Statement. In: Workshop on Developing a Teaching Philosophy Statement, 19 June 2017 - 19 June 2017, Technological Higher Education Association (THEA), Dublin, Ireland.
• Dalton, C. L., Wilson, A., & Agius, S. (2018). Twelve tips on how to compile a medical educator’s portfolio. Medical teacher, 40(2), 140-145. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2017.1369502
• Grundman, H. G. (2006). Writing a teaching philosophy statement. Notices of the AMS (PDF), 53(11), 1329-1333.
• Hegarty, N. C., & Silliman, B. R. (2016). How to approach teaching philosophy statements as career mission statements. Journal of Business and Educational Leadership, 6(1), 103.
• Montell, Gabriela (2003). How to Write a Statement of Teaching Philosophy (PDF), from the Chronicle Manage Your Career section of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Swart, Arthur James. "Developing a comprehensive teaching portfolio—A scholarly personal narrative." In Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2018 IEEE, pp. 26-31. IEEE, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON.2018.8363204
• Wesner, A. R., Jones, R., Schultz, K., & Johnson, M. (2016). Impact of the Use of a Standardized Guidance Tool on the Development of a Teaching Philosophy in a Pharmacy Residency Teaching and Learning Curriculum Program. Pharmacy, 4(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy4010009

RESOURCES ON WRITING A DIVERSITY STATEMENT

Along with teaching statements, many colleges and universities now consider diversity statements during faculty hiring and promotion. As this practice becomes more commonplace, we offer a selection of resources to help guide professionals interested in writing and improving their own statements on diversity.

• University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School: Diversity Statement Evaluation Rubric and workshops on Writing a Diversity Statement (see Rackham events calendar)
• Golash-Boza, Tanya (June 10, 2016). The Effective Diversity Statement. Inside Higher Ed.
• Reyes, Victoria (January 25, 2018). Demystifying the Diversity Statement. Inside Higher Ed.
• Schmaling, K. B., Baker, D. L., Blume, A. W., & Trevino, A. Y. (2018). Applicant responses to diversity selection criteria in academic staff position descriptions. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 1-16.
• UC San Diego Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion. Contributions to Diversity Statements