Drafting Teaching Statements

Drafting Teaching Statements for the Job Market

September 29, 2023 on Zoom

The teaching statement–sometimes called a statement of teaching philosophy–is an important artifact in the academic job search. It can deepen a hiring committee’s sense of who you are as an applicant and show how you enact your values and ideas as an educator. In this workshop, hosted by the Teaching and Learning Center, we’ll discuss the role of the teaching statement within the larger job application, what makes a strong statement, how to frame what’s distinct about the CUNY experience, and how to approach the rhetorical challenge of crafting this document. We’ll examine sample statements from various disciplines, and work through a range of approaches.

This workshop took place via Zoom. The workshop and materials were developed by Luke Waltzer.

Materials

All materials on this page and in the linked google folder are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 International Public License. 

This folder contains workshop plan and Google Slides used in the workshop.

Materials Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SBjJ3Cy3tidcurnp0Zpyr7HrcKlHOw-2?usp=drive_link

Drafting Teaching Statements Agenda

Introduction

  • Welcome and Introductions
  • The job market
  • The teaching statement within the job search
  • Statement of Teaching Philosophy/Teaching Statement /Teaching portfolio
  • Teaching at CUNY
  • Overview of workshop

Part One: Components and Structure of the Statement

  • Structure of the statement:
    • Philosophy:
      • an organizing principle or set of goals for your students…
        • “I believe students who study history should understand the nature of the historical project, and be able to explain how history is written, how it lives, and why this is important.”
      • a belief system about the value of studying your discipline…
        • “The study of history is crucial to the development of an informed and engaged citizenry, and the skills and methods necessary to participate in the historical project are transferable across domains.”
      • an animating force or commitment…
        • “My teaching is driven by the belief that the majority of history my students have previously been taught does not help them understand how the communities they come from were formed. I organize my courses as a corrective to these blind spots in the historical record.”
    • Evidence
      • “I believe students who study history should understand the nature of the historical project, and be able to explain how history is written, how it lives, and why this is important.”
        • A scaffolded research paper on historiography, or contested interpretations of the past, or historical synthesis
        • An activity analyzing primary sources and building an argument
        • Asking students to curate a gallery of contested memorials
      • “The study of history is crucial to the development of an informed and engaged citizenry, and the skills and methods necessary to participate in the historical project are transferable across domains.”
        • Exercises where students learn to do close-reading and rhetorical analysis of political or advocacy documents
        • Group research project where students pick a contemporary issue and trace its historical lineages using primary documents
        • Students produce a trailer for a documentary video or podcast about a historical subject
      • “My teaching is driven by the belief that the majority of history my students have previously been taught does not help them understand how the communities they come from were formed. I organize my courses as a corrective to these blind spots in the historical record.”
        • Research assignment using census data to understand the change in neighborhood populations over time, placed in dialogue with readings about immigration
        • Oral history project to gather interviews from community members who’ve witnessed change over time
    • Through your presentation of this work, the reader should be able to envision you in the classroom.
      • what is it like to be one of your students?
      • how do students spend their time when in your classes?
      • how and why do you make the pedagogical decisions you make?
      • how do you address the challenges particular to teaching in your discipline?
    • Thoughts on Style and Structure and Voice
      • Crafting for the busy reader… strong topic sentences
        • Absence of jargon
        • Quick set up

Part Two: Identifying/Extracting/Articulating Your “Philosophy”

    • Five minute freewrite:
  • Can you articulate a first idea that you want your students to grasp, behind which all else falls in line? Can you identify a guiding principle that ties your courses together?
  • Pair-Share

Back to main room for discussion

Part Three: Review of Sample Statements

Questions to consider:

  • What is the author’s teaching philosophy?
      • What does this statement do well?
      • What does this statement do less well?
      • What do you learn about the candidate from reading this statement?
  • Back to main room for Discussion: Can anyone share the philosophy from one of the sample statements?

Part Four: Enacting Your Philosophy

  • Five minute free write: list 3-5 activities/strategies/policies that you use in your classes that enact philosophy.

Wrapping Up

  • Questions to Start Writing
  • Why do you teach the way you do?
  • What should students expect of you as a teacher?
  • What is a method of teaching you rely on frequently? Why don’t you use a different method?
  • What do you want students to learn? How do you know your goals for students are being met?
  • What should your students be able to know or do as a result of taking your class?
  • How does your teaching facilitate student learning?
  • How do you as a teacher create an engaging or enriching learning environment?
  • What specific activities or exercises do you use to engage your students? What do you want your students to learn from these activities?
  • How has your thinking about teaching changed over time? Why?