The Portfolio Community of Practice

What is a Philosophy of Teaching Statement?

Philosophy of teaching statements are concise statements of what you believe about teaching and learning. Your teaching philosophy statement is reflective and personal and normally written as a narrative. This statement is generally is between one and two pages in length.

(a) Questions for reflection:

• What are your goals with respect to student learning?
• How would you describe the atmosphere in your classroom? How do you think your students would describe it?
• How do you help students to learn?
• What steps do you take to encourage higher level learning (such as synthesis, analysis, application, problem-solving, etc.)?
• What skills and values do you bring to the instructional aspect of your job?
• What is active learning and how do you use it in the classroom and in assignments?
• In which ways has your teaching changed in the last five years? Are they changes for the better (for you, for your students)? Explain.
• What qualities would you like to be remembered by as a teacher?

(b) Samples:

Sheree Rensel, http://www.wizzlewolf.com/philosophy.htm

John R. Meyer http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jrmeyer/www/philosophy.html

Michele Doney http://www.msu.edu/user/costabil/academic/portfolio/philosophy.htm

Lucie Moussou, http://www.moussu.net/TP/philosophy.html

Jeff Phillips, http://www.physics.uci.edu/~jeff/phil.html

This information is also available on the TAG website. For more information, visit TAG’s page on teaching portfolios.