Statement of Teaching Philosophy without any teaching experience?

[woolfie]

Teaching experience is not a requirement to get a TAship, yet a statement of teaching philosophy is required. What on earth do I put in it to make up 2 pages? Why I want to teach and why I'd be good at it? Like a cover letter?

[tinapickles]

I hated writing one of these when I took a class on how to teach freshman composition. I remember our professor giving a bit of help on how to structure it and vaguely remember it being something along the lines of:

1. What are your objectives as an instructor? This should go beyond "to teach my students how to (whatever fundamental/technical aspect your teaching them in). This could be stuff like do you want to help foster critical thinking, or impart some sort of skill beyond what's learned in the classroom, etc. It should also address your role (beyond that of instructor) in your student's processes and what your vs. their responsibilities are (think of this in terms of "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink").

2. What methods will you use to accomplish #1? What means do you see as a necessary part of the process of helping your students learn?

3. What sort of system of evaluation do you intend to use? Do you think, for example, that the student should have a role in determining their grade (i.e. self-reflection) or do you believe that tests are the only way to evaluate students' performance? There's a myriad number of ways to evaluate student performance from quizzes, to peer review, to portfolio evaluation, etc.

4. Why do you want to be an instrutctor? In you case, you may want to address the skills that TAing will help you acquire.

I'd start there.

[skeletonkeys]

Tina's response is great. I'd add that if you have any kind of tutoring experience, paid or volunteer, discuss that. For my MA teaching fellowship I had no teaching experience and talked about my tutoring experience instead. How do you approach working with students/tutees? Do you use (or plan to use) a holistic approach, where you address content issues before sentence level errors? Good luck! Teaching philosophy statements are just as hard as sops if not harder!

[wanderlust07]

All of the above is sound advice, so I'll only add my two bits briefly:

1. The Chronicle of Higher Ed. has a useful list of tips, here: http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Write-a-Statement-of/45133/

2. Don't get bogged down in a "lack of teaching experience." Remember, you have been in classrooms for years, and one approach to take to this is to consider the things that do and do not work for you as a student. Ask yourself what your professors and teachers have done that really worked well for you or your class as a whole. Why? How would you reproduce those (in a discussion course? In a larger lecture?). Could you improve on them? What absolutely flopped? How would you change it/fix it/avoid it? How have your experiences as a student shaped your idea of the role of the teacher in the classroom? Be concrete--if you want to "teach critical thinking," what would that look like in terms of assignments, the ratio of student- to teacher-generated prompts, discussion topics, feedback, etc? If you want "students to take responsibility for their learning/the material" does that mean you give flexible deadlines? Does it mean they lead discussion (even if they sometimes do it with less depth than you would have)? What about large lectures (keep in mind your audience--a small liberal arts school might involve different teaching needs or expectations than a larger school)?

Yes, this statement is about what you as a teacher will bring to the class, but it's also about how you expect your students to respond to that philosophy--don't be afraid to include your hypothetical class, and don't feel like you lack experience. Standing up in front of the room is a *different* experience and involves a lot of troubleshooting, but the adcomm isn't looking for anyone spotless right out of the gate. They want someone who's given serious thought to how a distinct set of values might affect the day-today experience of learning and who's willing to grow as a teacher.

[woolfie]

All of the above is sound advice, so I'll only add my two bits briefly:

1. The Chronicle of Higher Ed. has a useful list of tips, here: http://chronicle.com...ement-of/45133/

2. Don't get bogged down in a "lack of teaching experience." Remember, you have been in classrooms for years, and one approach to take to this is to consider the things that do and do not work for you as a student. Ask yourself what your professors and teachers have done that really worked well for you or your class as a whole. Why? How would you reproduce those (in a discussion course? In a larger lecture?). Could you improve on them? What absolutely flopped? How would you change it/fix it/avoid it? How have your experiences as a student shaped your idea of the role of the teacher in the classroom? Be concrete--if you want to "teach critical thinking," what would that look like in terms of assignments, the ratio of student- to teacher-generated prompts, discussion topics, feedback, etc? If you want "students to take responsibility for their learning/the material" does that mean you give flexible deadlines? Does it mean they lead discussion (even if they sometimes do it with less depth than you would have)? What about large lectures (keep in mind your audience--a small liberal arts school might involve different teaching needs or expectations than a larger school)?

Yes, this statement is about what you as a teacher will bring to the class, but it's also about how you expect your students to respond to that philosophy--don't be afraid to include your hypothetical class, and don't feel like you lack experience. Standing up in front of the room is a *different* experience and involves a lot of troubleshooting, but the adcomm isn't looking for anyone spotless right out of the gate. They want someone who's given serious thought to how a distinct set of values might affect the day-today experience of learning and who's willing to grow as a teacher.

Thanks guys! This all really helped me and I think I've written a good statement thanks to your help!