Reflective Teaching Statement: Getting Started
Summary:
This handout from UVA’s CTE describes the components of Reflective Teaching Statements, provides some suggestions on how to structure them, and offers some prompts to jump-start your thinking.
Take 10 to 15 minutes to begin to answer one or more of the first three questions. The other questions provide additional prompts that may help you get started writing.
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?
Assessment of student learning
- How do you know your students are learning what you want them to learn?
Other starter questions
- What do you believe or value about teaching and student learning? What do you enjoy most about teaching? When I think about teaching, I value (believe)/get excited about (look forward to)…
- If you had to choose a metaphor for teaching/learning what would it be? Teaching is like…. Learning is like…. The process of teaching and learning is like…
- How do your research and disciplinary context influence your teaching? For someone in my field (my discipline), teaching involves…
- How do your identity/background and your students’ identities/backgrounds affect teaching and learning in your classes? The identity and background of teachers and learners are important because...
- How do you account for differences in student learning styles in your teaching? In order to accommodate different ways of learning among students, I…
- How have you changed and developed as a teacher? What led to those changes? In the course of my career as a teacher, I…
Adapted from a handout by Chris O’Neal & Matt Kaplan, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan