Reflections on the "Writing Your Teaching Philosophy" Workshop

I feel like the workshop that I attended on Tuesday was (and will be) very valuable. We were provided with some interesting materials and excellent resources for creating a Teaching Philosophy which is personal, unique, and pertinent. We were given a handout with a sample Teaching Philosophy belonging to an individual from the field of Engineering, as well as a rubric for evaluating such a statement (created by a group of researchers from the University of Michigan). We were asked to read and evaluate the rubric. The rubric components focused on "goals for student learning," "teaching methods," "assessment," "creating an inclusive learning environment," and "stucture, rhetoric, and language." The sample Philosophy was filled with Engineering jargon, focused more on specific teaching instances rather than day-to-day pedagogical practice, and seemed to take little interest in the concept of inclusion. When polled, the majority of us in the large conference room felt that the sample lay on the border between "Needs work" and "Weak." The group of individual from Engineering, however, felt that it was an "Excellent" example, a philosophy which addressed the requirements outlined in rubric explicitly. This strange disagreement provided me with a very interesting learning moment. I realized how important a knowledge of audience is when writing a Teaching Philosophy. When applying for a first job in which the majority of my readers will be in my field, jargon might be acceptable and a more specificity may be appreciated. When adjusting my portfolio for tenure consideration, my audience may not consist of individuals specific to my field, thus changes should be made to make English-specific wording more generalized. Just as we emphasize in 5060 and to Freshman Composition students, audience is a very necessary consideration when writing. I am very glad that I chose to attend this workshop, and I have noticed as I read and research that I am finding components in articles which help me to better define my personal Philosophy and pedagogical stance.

In conclusion, I just want to share some questions-for-thought from the "Getting Started on Your Reflective Teaching Statement" handout (from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan, Chris O'Neal and Matt Kaplan):

a) What do you believe or value about teaching and student learning? What do you enjoy most about teaching? When I think about teaching, I value (believe)/get excited about (look forward to)...

b) If you had to choose a metaphor for teaching/learning what would it be?
Teaching is like...    Learning is like...    The process of teaching and learning is like...

c) How do your research and your disciplinary context influence your teaching?
For someone in my field (my discipline), teaching involves...

d) How do your identity/background and your students' identities/backgrounds affect teaching and learning in your classes? The identity and background of teachers and learners are important because...

e) How do you account for differences in student learning styles in your teaching? In order to accommodate different ways of learning among students I ...

f) What is your approach to evaluating and assessing students? Why? I believe the purpose of grading is...

g) How have you changed and developed as a teacher? What led to those changes?