Teaching Philosophy

It is important to start by describing where you want to end. In other words, what are your objectives as a teacher? The rest of your philosophy statement should support these objectives which should be achievable and relevant to your teaching responsibilities; avoid vague or overly grandiose statements. On the other hand, you will want to demonstrate that you strive for more than mediocrity or only nuts-and-bolts transference of facts.

You would certainly want your students to learn the fundamental content of the courses you teach. But beyond that, do you hope to foster critical thinking, facilitate the acquisition of life-long learning skills, prepare students to function effectively in an information economy, or develop problem-solving strategies? What is your role in orienting students to a discipline, to what it means to be an educated person in your field? How do you delineate your areas of responsibility as compared to your students' responsibilities? In what specific ways do you want to improve the education of students in your field? Are there discussions in academic journals or in professional organizations about shortcomings in the education of students today or unmet needs in the discipline and do you have ideas about how to address those shortcomings and needs? If you are going to use teaching in P & T bids, you will probably need to connect to national issues or objectives.

These are questions that will require some thought and you will probably benefit from discussing them with other faculty in your department. Some people can sit down and bang out a paragraph or two in a short time but most of us become more thoughtful about the "big" questions when we bounce them off of our colleagues, consider their responses, re-evaluate our positions, revise, talk some more, etc. Your statement of objectives as a teacher is the most important part of your teaching philosophy and you should take some time with it. And if you take it seriously, you will probably come back to this statement to revise or add to it. Think of it as a work in progress.