A teaching philosophy statement is a reflective piece of writing that articulates your goals and beliefs around teaching and learning. Unlike most forms of academic writing, the statement should be brief (two pages or less) and written in the first person (“I” statements). A successful statement includes specific examples of teaching strategies or methods you use to achieve your goals around teaching and learning as well as evidence of your effectiveness as an instructor (e.g., feedback from students, feedback from colleagues, feedback from mentors, student performance, student behavior, teaching awards, etc.). As you evolve as a teacher, your teaching philosophy statement will evolve as well, and you can expect to use your statement as part of the processes surrounding job applications, annual reviews, award nominations, and promotions.
Statements are strongest when they contain specific examples of what you to accomplish your goals for teaching and the techniques you use to help your students achieve their learning goals. To get started or to review an existing statement, it may be helpful to answer the following questions or to use this Teaching Philosophy Statements Rubric
- What are your core beliefs about teaching and/or learning?
- What are your teaching goals? When you teach, what do you want your students to achieve?
- How do the methods you use in your teaching support your goals, and how do you know when your methods are successful? What evidence do you have of student learning?
- How do you create a learning space that is inclusive for all students? How do you mitigate inequities among students? How would/do you combat existing structures of racism and oppression in your teaching?
- How have your grown and continued to improve your teaching over time?
- Are there particular challenges or unique circumstances that have impacted your teaching?
Whichever prompts you use, they should be consistent with the departmental and institutional goals. In writing and responding to the prompts, instructors should provide evidence and examples of how they are responding to the prompts. A teaching statement can then demonstrate the alignment between your beliefs, the teaching strategies you use, and the evidence of your effectiveness. This may help review committees gain information that may not be readily accessible through other elements of the evaluation process.
Diversity Statements
While sometimes requested diversity statements are requested as separate documents from a teaching statement, being able to address an awareness of the diverse backgrounds of students and how you will create an inclusive teaching environment are key components to effective teaching statements.
- Understanding Inclusive Excellence. Inclusive teaching strategies are highlighted in our Teaching@Tufts section on Inclusive Teaching.
- Developing and Writing a Diversity Statement. Vanderbilt’s website, has an overview of what they are, advice for getting started and for adapting it to Job Applications.
- Diversity StatementsYale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching & Learning has sample diversity statements from syllabi and recommendations for drafting your own statements.
Additional Teaching Statement Resources
- Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search by O’Neal, Meizlish, & Kaplan (University of Michigan, 2007)
- How to Improve your Teaching-Philosophy Statement by Gabriela Montell & Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez (Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2018)
- Guide on Teaching Statements (Vanderbilt University)
- Resources and Examples on Philosophy of Teaching Statement (The Ohio State University)
- Writing a teaching philosophy statement (University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching)
See Also