Teaching Philosophy Statement Research Articles

Aligning Teaching Philosophy Statements with Practice: An Evidence-Based Approach Using Retrospective Think-Aloud Protocols

Teaching philosophy statements are often declarations of beliefs interspersed with descriptions and metaphors. The disjuncture between the stated philosophy and actual teaching has been raised by numerous academics. This case study addresses the neglected area of grounding teaching philosophies on actual teacher behaviour rather than on espoused beliefs. This study includes a replicable framework for teachers to create evidence-based teaching philosophy statements through a systematic investigation of their actual teaching practices. A retrospective think-aloud protocol was used to recount a lesson. Using a transcript of the recount, the teacher’s actions were identified, extracted, and justified following pre-determined protocols. References to theoretical and empirical studies supporting or contradicting the justifications were checked in the research literature. To counteract potential self-bias, colleagues’ views on the reasons selected were surveyed. The discrepancy between the teacher’s justification of actions and the peers’ perspectives revealed hitherto hidden idiosyncrasies and underlying values.

Exploring Non-Native-English-Speaking Preservice EFL Teachers’ Cognitions: What Teaching Philosophy Statements Can Tell Us

This study investigates the content and characteristics of the cognitions of 30 Turkish English-as-a-foreign-language preservice teachers as manifested in their teaching philosophy statements. The study showed that the preservice teachers’ cognition was focused on both the pedagogical (teaching-learning and language teaching methods) and the personal and interpersonal (learners’ and teachers’ roles and the relationship between them) aspects of teaching and was characterized by high idealism and naïveté, but they also demonstrated a certain level of awareness of the future contexts in which they would be teaching. Although their past experiences significantly shaped their cognition, they found that their current teacher education program helped them develop a critical view of these experiences.

Differentiated instruction for English learners: Teachers' understanding and practices

AbstractThe increase in the English learner (EL) student population in the United States and these students' placement in U.S. public schools have created high priority demands to address their language and learning needs. General education teachers, however, are often unprepared or underprepared to work with ELs, with limited knowledge and expertise to integrate differentiated instruction (DI) for them. This study examined two elementary teachers' understanding of differentiated instructional practices for EL students in a mainstream setting. Employing qualitative methods and following inductive data analytic processes, the study examined what these elementary teachers say facilitates DI for ELs. The researcher used semi‐structured individual interviews, a joint interview, and photo elicitation as the primary sources of data collection, and documents such as teachers' differentiated lesson plans and statements of teaching philosophy as secondary data sources. Findings revealed that a caring relationship between the teacher and ELs was essential and played a key role in student learning. By building caring relationships, the teachers learned about their EL students' needs and their interests and used that knowledge to implement DI for these students. Furthermore, teachers' proficiency in a language other than English and their metalinguistic awareness to bridge between one language and the other guided the teachers' differentiated instructional practices for their ELs.

Teaching Philosophy in a Teaching Portfolio: Domain Knowledge and Guidance.

Teaching philosophy defines the beliefs and ideas that guide practices in teaching and learning. Writing teaching philosophy statements for promotion or employment is daunting for inexperienced new faculty members. This article aims to discuss the principles of relevant educational domains that academics need to know to be well informed when writing their teaching philosophy. It also provides a new perspective on how to write the personal statements. Journal articles published in English language between 2018 and 2023 (as well as important older ones) in electronic databases (Google Scholar, MEDLINE, PubMed, and SCOPUS) were searched, sifted, reviewed and used for this narrative literature review. Additionally, the websites of educational organisations such as higher education institutions were selected using convenience sampling method and searched to ascertain practices. Educators need to link teaching philosophy statements to the literature about teaching. However, there is a scarcity of literature that provides a comprehensive overview of the required domain knowledge. These domains are Supervision, Curriculum development, Assessment, Mentorship, Pedagogy, and Scholarship of teaching and learning (S-CAMPS domains). Using various teaching practices and models to achieve the best quality learning and valued transformation is crucial in achieving a comprehensive Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Therefore, developing a personal philosophy provides the opportunity for reflection on utilizing the theory-practice-philosophy perspective best to serve the students, academic institution, and society.

Foregrounding a teaching philosophy statement in scaffolding reflective practice and professional development of higher education teachers in Lesotho

Foregrounding a teaching philosophy statement in scaffolding reflective practice and professional development of higher education teachers in Lesotho

Academic literacy development and professional identity construction in non-native English-speaking novice English language teachers.

Studies examining students' academic literacy development have received increasing attention in the past two decades, with exponential growth in the literature since 2010. Despite this, there have been relatively few empirical studies on novice teachers' academic literacy learning process and the construction of teachers' professional identities. To address this issue, this study employed a longitudinal narrative inquiry to trace and evaluate the professional identity construction of two Chinese novice language teachers as they developed academic literacy in their master's and doctoral programs in the United States. The study adopted a Community of Practice (CoP) framework and drew upon various data sources, such as both novice teachers' coursework, reflection journals, statements of teaching philosophy, and other supplementary documents, to evaluate how each participant was socially engaged (or disengaged) in a new language education community and how they developed professional identities as language teachers in this process. The findings indicate that the pedagogical knowledge and theories acquired by both participants during their graduate studies informed their teaching methods and promoted their development of a researcher-teacher identity. In addition, the longitudinal data allowed for tracking changes in both participants' self-efficacy and emotions. While the stories of both novice teachers described the evolution of their teaching beliefs throughout their graduate studies, their narratives also highlighted a lack of micropolitical literacy training at the graduate level. This study contributes to our understanding of the connection between academic literacy development and the formation of teacher professional identity by shedding light on novice language teachers with a non-native English-speaking background. The implications for future research are also provided.

Demystifying academic promotional genre:A rhetorical move-step analysis of Teaching Philosophy Statements (TPSs)

As a high-stakes academic promotional genre, teaching philosophy statements (TPSs) are important in academic professionals’ career success and professional development in U.S. higher education. However, this genre remains relatively overlooked in current EAP genre research. The study addresses this gap by investigating the rhetorical moves and steps, including their frequency and sequence, in 100 TPSs written by U.S. university faculty members who wrote their TPSs to apply for and eventually won prestigious university teaching awards. It also explores gatekeeper and novice writer’s perceptions of the genre analysis results. Findings show that the TPSs are structured by two very common moves: Construct teacher profile and Demonstrate teacher competence in the classroom, as well as three less common moves and multiple very common, common, and less common steps. The TPSs are also cyclically sequenced by the two very common moves. The gatekeeper and novice writer positively recognized the usefulness of the genre analysis results in terms of representing the TPS genre, further highlighted the genre’s intertextual operation, and eventually interpreted the results’ potential in informing EAP writing pedagogy. Future research and pedagogical directions are discussed.

Exploring contextual factors for pre-service teachers teaching with technology through planning, teaching, and reflecting

Teaching with technology is a required skill for today’s teachers and the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) is a commonly used framework that is used to assess the effective usage of this skill. In this framework, teachers’ knowledge is assessed under various individual and blended knowledge domains. The effect of contextual factors on TPACK is a relatively recent focal point of this framework. Therefore, this study investigates pre-service teachers’ enactment of different TPACK domains and interprets the results according to contextual factors that underlie their decisions and their knowledge levels. For this purpose, a case study involving four pre-service teachers was conducted. The contextual factors are extracted from the pre-service teachers’ reflection and teaching philosophy statements. Then their demonstration of TPACK levels are found both during planning and teaching stages. The results indicate that pre-service teachers with low TPACK enactment are mostly preoccupied with contextual elements related to practical concerns, whereas those with higher levels exhibited a greater degree of contextual elements related to beliefs and external priorities. It was also found that this latter group’s planning and teaching artifacts are more balanced with respect to TPACK levels, whereas a more significant drop in TPACK levels from planning to teaching was observed for the former group.

A Framework for Creating and Using Teaching Philosophy Statements to Guide Reflective and Inclusive Instruction

A Framework for Creating and Using Teaching Philosophy Statements to Guide Reflective and Inclusive Instruction

Teaching Philosophy Statements: The Impact of a Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Faculty Learning Community at a Hispanic Serving Institution

ABSTRACT We used a phenomenological research design to explore the impact of a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) to support STEM faculty members’ development of cultural wealth principles and teaching practices. In this study, we analyzed teaching philosophy statements to learn how the FLC shaped STEM faculty participants’ expression of teaching beliefs and values. Because effective teaching philosophy statements are linked to good teaching and transparently designed assignments, the language used to articulate teaching values can inform how we build equity-minded and culturally relevant educational spaces. Findings demonstrated that some faculty members developed and articulated teaching beliefs and intended practices that were consistent with culturally relevant teaching and cultural wealth. However, the study did not discover evidence of practice intentions that reflected these culturally relevant pedagogical principles related to the specific assessment of student learning. We discuss implications for faculty developers at HSIs to support STEM faculty members’ use of culturally relevant and community engaged concepts and teaching approaches.

How search committees assess teaching: Lessons for CTLs

This study updates and expands upon past work on how tenure-track hiring committees evaluate teaching effectiveness to provide centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) current data as they support graduate students and postdocs navigating the academic hiring process. In this study, 166 hiring committee chairs from nine academic disciplines and a variety of institution types (e.g., Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral) responded to survey questions addressing how they evaluate teaching effectiveness for tenure-track positions. Results indicate that hiring chairs across institution types and disciplines value a candidate’s teaching effectiveness. Hiring committees use a variety of documents to gather information about an applicant’s teaching, but the teaching philosophy statement is most common. The survey responses also provide greater clarity on what hiring chairs find effective in applicants’ teaching philosophy statements, diversity and inclusion statements, and presentations of student evaluations. We discuss implications of these findings for scholarship of educational development (SoED) researchers, CTL leadership engaged in strategic planning, and educational developers providing consultations and workshops for future faculty.

October 2022 Placement Ads

October 2022 Placement Ads

When Immigrant Mothers of Color Become Public School Teachers for English Language Learners: Intersectionality for Transformative Teacher Preparation

AbstractThis article contests the whitewashed ideologies and practices in teacher preparation programs and K–12 schools (Lee‐Johnson, 2019) with a counter‐storytelling analysis (Solorzano & Yosso, 2001, 2002). Based on the analysis of the lived experiences of two immigrant mothers of color (IMC), who had transitioned into certified English Language Learner (ELL) teachers, the researcher proposes a transformative frame, which stems from Crenshaw's (1989) intersectionality and Mezirow's (1990) transformative learning. The data sources include the two immigrant mothers' oral stories told at an ELL parent panel, their written teaching philosophy statements, and blog posts. The findings contribute to the knowledge base of teacher preparation in TESOL and applied linguistics by foregrounding the racially othered experiences of IMC; envisioning intersectionality as an agentive tool for negotiation, emancipation, and advocacy; and proposing a transformative frame for TESOL teacher education. The researcher calls for considerations of using intersectionality for transforming the teaching practices and ideologies in teacher preparation programs and K–12 schools.

Developing teacher awareness and action plans for teaching English as an international language

Researchers have made pedagogical suggestions regarding how to incorporate international varieties of English in teacher education, but the amount of research on how novice teachers develop such knowledge and pedagogies and put them into practice is noticeably inadequate. This study presents a two-part case study in order to address this concern. In the first part, the study reports how four pre-service teachers in a teacher education program developed their knowledge and awareness informed by an English-as-an-international language perspective in their curricula, materials, and classroom instruction. The second part reports how one of the four teachers implemented a pedagogical project with an aim to transform her students’ attitudes and knowledge toward various Englishes. The data were drawn from semi-structured interviews, teaching philosophy statements, written assignments, and reflective journals. The findings overall provide important insights into understanding the emergence of transformative pedagogical awareness, philosophies, and praxis in addressing the diversity of Englishes by pre-service teachers in teacher education programs.

Higher Teacher Education: Raising Awareness toward Constructing Teaching Philosophy Statements

This article focuses on exploring whether teacher educators and teacher students at higher teacher education programs have constructed their teaching philosophy statements, how they implement such philosophy statements, and how they develop and evaluate the contents of the teaching materials related to the courses they are instructing. By following the qualitative case study methodology, the author employed semi-structured interviews with twenty teacher educators and fifteen teacher students from one state higher education institution in Yemen. With the employment of thematic network analysis techniques, the findings report on the lack of awareness concerning the teaching philosophy statements construction, the random process of designing and evaluating teaching materials, and the lack of teaching aids for realizing the teaching philosophies of those with developed teaching statements. For practical implementation, university leaders and administrators are recommended to establish a program that focuses on the professional development of the teaching faculty with a focus on highlighting and providing useful knowledge on the ‘teaching philosophy statements’ construction and ‘materials design and evaluation’ processes. Keywords: teaching philosophy, teacher education, higher education, curriculum design, Yemen

November 2021 Placement Ads

November 2021 Placement Ads

Teaching Philosophy Statement for Physics Teachers: Let’s Think About

The statement of teaching philosophy reflects on teachers’ growth and dedication to achieve the goal and values. Concerning philosophy, physics is the most fundamental science discipline which has profound philosophical implications. This article aims to discuss the importance of the teaching philosophy statement (TPS) for sustaining the teaching-learning process in the classroom. Moreover, it also includes the authors’ TPS in teaching physics. This academic paper employs the systematic literature review and narrative literature review to explain scholarly opinion regarding teaching philosophy among physics and natural sciences philosophers. Three educational implications have been discussed. First, educators need to realize that not every student wants to be a physicist, and teachers need to manage this problem. More often, the physics teachers also have to think about addressing students with different abilities in the classroom. Second, as the facilitator of the learning outcomes, the teachers must possess good character and value-laden attributes necessary for teaching. Finally, the researchers of this study provide the TPS for physics, “Let Us Think About,” and philosophical implications in teaching physics. The term of teaching philosophy may vary based on the expert who writes it and its application in the classroom (i.e., philosophy in science teaching, philosophy of physics, philosophy of science in teaching, teaching philosophy, teaching statement, and teaching philosophy statement). However, the teaching philosophy statement is the most common phrase since Beatty et al. explain the concept in the early 21st century. In addition, the finding indicates that TPS is important for developing teachers’ way of thinking in the classroom setting.

Exploring the preferred learning style of preservice teachers and how this influences their philosophy of teaching

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to address how preservice teachers’ preferred learning style influences their philosophy of teaching agricultural education. A convergent parallel mixed methods design was used in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously, analyzed separately, and then merged for combined analysis. In this study, we identified 17 preservice teachers’ learning style and then assessed how their learning style influenced their philosophy statement. We found 59% of the teaching philosophy statements were similar to the preservice teachers’ learning style, 18% were different, and 23% were deemed inconclusive. It appears the preferred learning style of preservice teachers does carry through into their teaching philosophy. The percentage of inconclusive statements show that teachers will incorporate multiple learning styles to meet the diverse learning needs of their students. When the various learning styles of a class are met, it is suggested that the learning experience will be more effective and beneficial for the learners. Based on the findings of this study, we recommend implementing professional development sessions to help teachers blend their preferred learning style with the needs of their learners. Additionally, further research is needed to compare teachers’ actual practice with their teaching philosophies.

Teaching Philosophy Statement and Ideological Becoming

The writing of a teaching philosophy statement can be interpreted as a dynamic component in the development of the teacher’s system of ideas, their ideological self. In this article of reflection, I examine the exercise of reflection and personal growth that the development of a personal educational philosophy promotes according to some writing guidelines available. Through a documentary method, I argue the assumptions of the beliefs in question to interpret them under bakhtinian concepts of heteroglossia and ideological becoming. The examination of heteroglossia in the text of a TPS increases the awareness of individual teaching activity connected to broader social, cultural, and political practices built through writing. These considerations are intended to connect the activities of educators with the possibility of more democratic societies.

Teaching Philosophy Statement and Ideological Becoming

The writing of a teaching philosophy statement can be interpreted as a dynamic component in the development of the teacher’s system of ideas, their ideological self. In this article of reflection, I examine the exercise of reflection and personal growth that the development of a personal educational philosophy promotes according to some writing guidelines available. Through a documentary method, I argue the assumptions of the beliefs in question to interpret them under bakhtinian concepts of heteroglossia and ideological becoming. The examination of heteroglossia in the text of a TPS increases the awareness of individual teaching activity connected to broader social, cultural, and political practices built through writing. These considerations are intended to connect the activities of educators with the possibility of more democratic societies.