Now, I love teaching. Absolutely love it. One might even say that I "luuuurve" it. But I cannot fathom how to write one of these things in such a way as to not sound A) excessively enthusiastic, B) creepily engaged, C) overly detached or D) flat-out cheesy.
And as I've asked around for advice, I've hit upon a disturbing (but perhaps unsurprising) trend. Every professor I have spoken to - literally every professor - has said that they rarely bother to read these things because they're all invariably the same and say little about a candidate's actual abilities as a teacher. According to one: "No one comes out and says, 'I think discussion is for losers. My teaching philosophy is that I lecture, they listen, and the smart ones understand what I'm saying and write it down.' Everyone talks about the importance of engaging the students in dialogue, teaching them to think, etc., etc., etc." Q: So what's your advice? How do you go about writing one of these things? For those of you who've been on search committees, do you even read these? If you do, what are you looking for?
After nearly twenty years on this side of the interviewing table, I can say that where I teach no candidate has ever been hired because of the teaching essays, but many have been dropped from consideration.
ReplyDeleteIt seems you've been asking your graduate faculty, yet for small schools like mine, ignoring or dismissing these essays is not the best advice.
If you intend to apply for positions at smaller schools (especially for no-name ambitious schools with unrealistic research expectation),you have to take these essays seriously.
Usually after the first and second cuts, committee members read those essays carefully and critically—merely to have “evidence” to support his/her number one candidate and to beat down others.
My other advice is similar to advice I gave back at RYS: If you are applying to a range of schools, try to have at least two versions: one for “research” mostly positions and one for “teaching” institutions. In your field, for example, do some departments have classes of 300 students while other departments have classes of 30? (The largest class I teach has 24 students, so how you teach large sections doesn’t interest me.)
If you have the time and the drive, read the department web pages and steal—I mean adapt—the bs there. If you can plug in a specific course title here and there—more work I know but worth it at most smaller schools—your readers feel that at least you are applying specifically to their institutions. We know of course that you’re applying to all openings, but we still like to pretend that we’re special to you—it’s one of the few joys left of being on search committees.
Please whatever you decide, don’t make this critical mistake: do not discuss how you would teach a specific course if that course is housed in a different department or even a different college here. We analyze basket weaving, so any candidate talking about how to teach students to weave is quickly cut.
I’m writing as a teacher at a small, no-name but unrealistically ambitious school. Presumably you’ve asked your graduate faculty for advice about teaching essays, but those annoying essays can be important at a small, insecure school like mine. Take them seriously if you choose to apply.
ReplyDeleteThe essay becomes important as we finalize our short list. Most often, people use what’s in the essays to support their number-one candidates and to call into question others’ top candidates. Hardly fair, but that’s what happens.
Here’s some advice: if you intend to apply to a range of schools, try to prepare at least two basic essays: one for larger or “research” programs, with larger classes, and another for smaller or “teaching” programs. (For example, my largest class has 24 students, so I’m not interested in how you teach sections with 300.)
As most candidates promise the same thing, you need to catch our attention in what will seem a sincere way. I know this ploy requires some time and work, but for smaller schools go to the web pages and steal—I mean adapt—some of the bs listed there. That can give you some idea what the departments pretend to care about. If you can, drop in a specific course title or two. Those types of details suggest that you’re actually applying specifically for our job. We assume that you’re applying for each and every job, but we like to pretend we’re special. The illusion helps us get through that huge stack of applications.
Finally I have to admit honestly that no one has ever been hired because of the teaching essay, but candidates have been cut because of them. We teach analyzing basket weaving. Any job candidate detailing how s/he teaches students how to weave gets cut quickly.
Try to write a sincere and accurate description of how you would like to teach. It will end up having qualities A, B and D which you list. Everybody understands that it's difficult to write a teaching philosophies without sounding cheesy and a little too enthusiastic. Sounding detached from the real world suggests that you won't know what to do when you encounter real students, the type that don't show up on time, do their homework or engage in discussions.
ReplyDeleteAvoid the temptation to write how you really do teach (different from how you would like to teach). We do read these. As TPP says, they are a useful way of eliminating the real dolts from the box of applications. We expect a little "hopey-changey" rhetoric and assume that you're putting on an act for us. If you come across as a mean curmudgeon, we might think that's your act and worry about your real demeanor.
Over here at public R1, we read them, but nobody has been hired just for writing a good one. On the other hand, when we can cut someone for any reason (we get 400-700 applications per position), including a bad teaching statement, we do.
ReplyDeleteHere's what works: a minimum of abstract philosophizing, absolutely no edu-speak ("student-centered classroom," "learning styles," etc.), concrete examples of things that have worked for the candidate, and an awareness of who our student population actually is and how our curriculum works (the last is optional but impressive). In other words, anecdotes framed by analysis of what they mean as far as the candidate's vision of teaching and of our institution are much more effective than abstract blah-blah about love of learning.
With that said, talking about teaching is much more important at the interview stage. We do ask questions about it, and we do listen. So far we have hired amazingly productive scholars who also teach well and are great campus citizens. The levels of accomplishment, experience, and acumen out there are incredible -- in any other historical moment, most of the beginning assistants we hire fresh out of graduate school would be tenured.
Anarcho-metatheism gilded with existential pragmatism. Works for me.
ReplyDeleteAt my college, it is used for consideration of promotion as part of the teaching portfolio. As you are preparing to write it, think about what you would say to someone, maybe another teacher, about your teaching and what you feel are the most important aspects of the role. Do you feel that learning how to basket weave is the most important aspect of your student’s learning or is it understanding the basket weaver’s motivation for their work, which your students should grasp? And as you go about his classroom experience, what are the factors that you stress to get there? Is it the inquiry, the discovery, the process? Do they have to write about that? Speak about it? How do you determine if they have learned it? What do you get out of it? How do you know if it worked? Has it changed over the years? Does it change depending on the class size or type of student? Do have any overriding themes going on in the class? How do they apply to the discipline? Be honest. The reader will know if you are sincere or not. This is a very personal document, just like teaching is a very personal activity.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps.
I know for a fact that my essay about my teaching philosophy is one of the things that singled me out among potential candidates when LD3C was looking. My highest upper mucky-muck--who was the last to interview me, reviewed me for each of my probationary years, and had a LOT of say in whether I got tenure--mentioned how much he liked it during each of my reviews. He also asked me to comment on how my philosophy of teaching may have changed after each year at LD3C.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I teach at a CC, and I'm lucky enough to teach at a CC where the administration actually does value teaching and many colleagues are dedicated teachers. I also applied only to CCs when I went on the market, but I can say that this essay was brought up in each of my interviews and discussed.
As Cindy said, this is very much a personal document. Think of it as a college entrance essay, and consider how much weight each place you're applying to will give it.
Also, if you can, tailor it to each place. I'm not saying that you rewrite it completely for every place, but I think my essays stood out because I was careful to use some of the language each audience required.
It's a mix of what you want to convey and what your audience needs to hear--or, rather, it's what you want to convey in a way your audience needs to hear it.
If you can, find someone recently hired (it doesn't have to be at your institution) whom you trust and ask to read his or hers. That's what I did, and it helped a bunch.
As others have pointed out, some places will take this seriously, some will use it as a weeding-out tool, and some won't look at it at all.
Good luck!
We have to write these for promotion and tenure. I have no idea if anyone reads them, and if they do, it's only to find out if we're serious about teaching or have ever thought about what we do. Nevertheless I find them insanely hard to write; it was probably the hardest single part of my tenure package. So as for how to write one for a job application, and what goes into it, follow the advice given by others, above. But as for how exactly to get the thing written AT ALL, since I will develop writer's block for days at the prospect, what I do is write how I ACTUALLY feel about teaching. All of it. What I REALLY do. The grad students that scare me, the classes I'm unprepared for, my conviction that everyone on campus including the coffee shop clerks would be better teachers than I am, given the chance, all of the things I try to do that don't work as I had planned, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever sees this document, of course. But it gets all that out of the way, and then the next day I go back over it and it turns out that about half of it is actually quite solid stuff about my teaching practices and why I do them and what I'm hoping they'll produce, which is exactly what such a statement needs. So I cut out all the self- and student-denigration and have a perfectly respectable teaching philosophy statement.
And then I delete the original. Well, I don't, because it's usually hilarious. But I password protect it and bury it on my hard drive where only I can find it. I hope.
Personally, I focus on demonstrating that you know the various forms of pedagogy. Waaaay too many academics are completely unprepared for the classroom, having been trained to love research. So I want you to show me that you know what kinds of things are taught through socratic discussion versus group work versus lecture versus writing exercises. I want to see how your material shines different colors depending on which of these things you use. And I want to ensure that you won't just waste the students' time by talking at them without any regard (as demonstrated in your sample comments) to the students' comprehension/ability/skills.
ReplyDeleteBut that's me.
At my CC, the teaching statement will determine whether you get an interview (or at least it would if we were hiring, which we won't be anytime soon thanks to our lovely state legislators). We are looking for proffies who want to teach, know how to teach, and are genuinely interested in student progress. No one wants to be burned by the dreaded stealth candidate who comes in, takes the job for a year or two to get enough FT experience, and then goes running for a research institution or administration, particularly since that hiring line will be eliminated after the person leaves.
ReplyDeleteMy advice would be to tailor the teaching statement to the type of job you're applying for since each type of institution has specific needs and serves different types of students. The more you can demonstrate you've done your homework and would be a good fit for that school, the more likely the teaching statement will be to help you get your foot in the interview pool.
Tell them the greatest teaching moments are when you make actual, physical contact with your students. Give specific, vivid examples from grad school. Then tell them you are lonely after spending too many years teaching online and get really excited to be teaching real live students again. REALLY excited. Then tell them that you can also coach and would gladly put in the extra time around the facilities tending to the student athletes.
ReplyDelete@adjunctslave: You made my spill my tea! I never laugh out loud like that!
ReplyDelete