The  Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington recognizes the importance of including a teaching philosophy statement in instructors' portfolios or as a way that an instructor can convey their personal philosophies on how they conduct themselves and their expectations in the classroom. Dr. Patty Turrisi, former Director of the Center for Teaching excellence, articulates these ideas below.

What is a Teaching Philosophy Statement?

Minimally, a teaching philosophy statement is an account of how one conceives his or her role in communicating an academic discipline or specialized subject matter to students; one’s thoughts and attitudes about learning; and the methods one uses to carry out teaching.  However, since teaching and learning are essentially experiences within a community of human beings, there is a spiritual dimension, and a personal perspective that each person brings to teaching that can also be captured in a teaching philosophy statement. 

How does one go about discovering one’s teaching philosophy?

The process of articulating one’s profoundest relationships with a discipline and its community of inquirers (including students) requires self-reflection!  Your answers to some key questions might shed light on the true you.  For example, what is your ideal image of a great teacher?  What is your ideal image of a great student?  In what sense are you or have you been anything like these images?  Why or why not?  What is special about the subject you teach – why have you chosen to be professionally involved in developing knowledge of this subject and communicating it to others?  What are the consequences of students learning what you wish them to learn?

Why should you write a teaching philosophy statement?

The reasons for doing so are both formative and summative, that is, you may advance your own professional development in terms that are satisfying to you, and, you may also demonstrate the level of your professional development to others.

The benefits of writing a teaching philosophy statement include:

Ø      A baseline description of yourself as a teacher that can be compared with reality – to what extent and how do you practice the principles you ascribe to yourself in your statement?  To what extent are these principles and practices truly the ones you wish to represent?  How do the precepts of other practitioners of your discipline compare with yours?  How does your scholarship mesh with your teaching?

Ø      A fact sheet about yourself that can be published to students and peers – “Here is who I am; here is what to expect from me; here is what I expect from you; here is the set of goals I understand my interaction with you to be fulfilling.”

Ø      An elegant, masterly demonstration of your grasp of the profession, its principles and its best practices; a statement of the ideals and values of your discipline and an account of your personal perspectives toward the principles, practices, ideals and values of the discipline you find most compelling in the world.