Article: Scholarly Teaching

Teaching Philosophies and Teaching Dossiers Guide

University of Calgary Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning

Our Recommendation

This guide provides a robust resource for creating teaching dossiers and philosophy statements.

Teaching and learning in higher education are inherently complex processes. Increasingly, postsecondary educators are seeking ways to reflect on and provide robust, accurate evidence of the scope and quality of their teaching approaches, practices, and impact on student learning and the broader academic community.

This guide continues to provide a robust resource for creating teaching dossiers and philosophy statements. The current revisions expand upon teaching from multiple perspectives, including looking at your teaching through the lens of equity, diversity and inclusion, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, mentorship, supervision, and educational leadership. The guide starts with an overview of a research-informed framework for developing teaching expertise and then describes how to create philosophy statements that ground your approaches to teaching across multiple contexts. The final sections of the guide focus on creating and evaluating teaching dossiers. Each section incorporates scholarship and practical exercises for preparing philosophy statements and dossiers.