What Purposes does the Teaching Statement Serve?

The Teaching Statement can be used for personal, professional, or pedagogical purposes. While Teaching Statements are becoming an increasingly important part of the hiring and tenure processes, they are also effective exercises in helping one clearly and coherently conceptualize his or her approaches to and experiences of teaching and learning. As Nancy Van Note Chism, Professor Emerita of Education at IUPUI observes, “The act of taking time to consider one’s goals, actions, and vision provides an opportunity for development that can be personally and professionally enriching. Reviewing and revising former statements of teaching philosophy can help teachers to reflect on their growth and renew their dedication to the goals and values that they hold.”

Goals for Student Learning

What do you want your students to be able to do at the end of your course? Give specific examples.

Teaching methods and strategies

What are your teaching strategies for realizing your goals? In other words, what do you do in the classroom and beyond to promote student learning?

The length, style, and content of reflective teaching statements will vary depending on contextual factors such as the author’s amount and types of teaching experience, disciplinary conventions, the intended audiences, and the purposes of the document. Graduate students most commonly write reflective teaching statements as a component of job applications. Faculty are most likely to write teaching statements when compiling dossiers for contract renewal and promotion. Both groups also write statements for personal reflection and professional development.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be used as a feedback partner when writing a reflective teaching statement. This guide provides sample prompts to help you get started. Remember, GenAI is a tool—it can support your workflow and provide you with useful feedback, but it cannot substitute for your expertise and the expertise of your colleagues. It should not be your sole source of feedback, and you need to check its work.

You Will Need:

• Access to the GenAI tool of your choice. Some currently popular tools include ChatGPT-4o, Claude.ai, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Consider trying out multiple options to see what works for you and how feedback might differ across platforms.
• Your teaching statement.
• The rubric you would like to use to evaluate your teaching statement.