Statements of Teaching Philosophy

Well-defined teaching philosophy is essential to creating and maintaining a campus culture supportive of teaching. Presented in this paper are reasons for statements of teaching philosophy as well as descriptions of how the statements are beneficial to students, faculty, and university administrations. Described are ways of creating a statement of teaching philosophy and dimensions that may be included in such statements. This article begins a discussion of roles, composition, and evaluation of statements of teaching philosophy. Teaching is a scholarly activity when it is purposeful, reflective, documented, and shared in an evaluative forum (Menges & Weimer, 1996). Articulating an individual teaching philosophy provides the foundation by which to clarify goals, to guide behavior, to seed scholarly dialogue on teaching, and to organize evaluation. Statements of teaching philosophy function both personally and publicly. A professor who writes a teaching philosophy wants to document beliefs, values, and approaches. It may be written to clarify or reflect on practice, to receive feedback from colleagues, or to articulate a view of teaching for administrative decision-making (Murray, 1995). Regardless of the purpose, the activity demonstrates a deep commitment to teaching and also to growing personally and professionally. An administration that asks its professors to record formally their teaching philosophies expresses a value for scholarly approaches to teaching and for working toward clearly articulated educational goals. Often professors present their teaching scholarship in a teaching portfolio (Hutchings, 1996; Murray, 1995; Lyons