Document Type

Chapter

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Documenting Teaching Excellence

Editor

Karin deJonge-Kannan and Travis N. Thurston

Publisher

Utah State University

Publication Date

2025

First Page

205

Last Page

220

Abstract

Theoretically, the teaching philosophy statement (TPS) is a self-reflective document that articulates your core beliefs as an instructor about teaching and learning and explains your values, goals, and strategies for fostering student success. But let’s face it: the TPS can feel like the most awkward and performative of professional documents—an uncomfortable hurdle to jump with every application, annual review, and promotion, which makes many instructors, regardless of rank, dread writing (and rewriting) it. At its best, the TPS captures your authentic voice and professional identity, and it paints a clear picture of how you approach the classroom. Yet, in practice, the TPS too often devolves into a painful bureaucratic exercise—more of a perfunctory, institutionally-driven performance than a genuinely self-reflective expression of praxis rooted in creative agency. Further, while there is a whole field of literature insisting on the importance of this central document for promotion, the TPS is rarely positioned as a strategic, rhetorical space for recursively self-fashioning and self- advocating your professional instructional identity.

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