What Should I put In My teaching statement?

Last week I had the opportunity to present as part of a panel discussion on writing teaching statements for the academic job market. This post is an attempt to make that prep work accessible to anyone who may find it useful. The credit for the phrasing of some of these questions goes to Kate Fortmueller, who organized the discussion.

Certainly, take this advice with the caveat that the academic job market is brutal, combining the worst of grind mindset meritocracy and lottery systems. In other words: you have to be good and it’s random.

Nonetheless, having guideposts can be helpful, so here goes:

First, a bit of context: I have been on the market many times and written lots of these document, but I think more importantly, I’ve served on 9 search committees since arriving at my job, including for a variety of position types: TT, Postdoc, continuing lecturer, and a senior hire. Because every institution operates a little differently, I should specify that I’m in an English department located inside of a flagship public university, which informs the way we search and the rules around job searches. For example, I told the workshop participants not to send any materials we don’t request because we simply will not look at them. Not because we’re mean, but because we’re bound by HR policy to treat all applicants the same.

Second, an argument on behalf of the teaching statement: When you’re preparing job market documents, the teaching statement can feel very secondary. Indeed, some schools won’t ask for them or will only ask for them at a later round. And, my god, you have so many other documents to prepare.

But, whereas your cover letter is something you’ll only use to acquire a job, and, if it’s a good job, something you’ll never use again, the teaching statement is a document that will grow with you. It often forms the basis of a teaching narrative for progress-to-promotion milestones and becomes part of your tenure file. All that to say, less a total waste of time than you might think.

Now, advice:

If you are truly drafting this thing for the first time: what does a teaching statement look like?  What should you include in your teaching statement?

Typically, these are one page, single-spaced. I like to think of them as consisting of 20% philosophy/statement of principle and 80% concrete examples of what this looks like in action.

If you are struggling to generate text, you might try brainstorming two ways: working from principles to examples, then from examples to principles. Also, ask the people around you to remind you of what you’ve done. Ask friends, family, partner, etc.: what teaching things have you seen me get really excited about?

How can I avoid clichés in my teaching statement?

This one is really important. You want to avoid having a teaching statement that’s full of buzzwords and pedagogy-jargon. This is not so much because search committees are full of conservative old fuddy-duddies who hate ungrading, but because it’s hard to remember abstract concepts. Instead, when discussing and trying to differentiate candidates, committees end up relying on shorthand that’s very focused on concrete examples. It sounds like, “oh, that’s the candidate who did the cool postcard thing.” Or, “yeah, the guy with the class on the history of popcorn.”

So, you want to think about very specific, concrete examples to help show the committee what it’s like to be with you in class.

Here’s a list of question to help you generate specific material:

·      What do you do in an intro class? How do you teach non-majors? How might you teach majors?

·      What kinds of disciplinary questions or problems do you like to help your students think about and why? What does this look like in action?

·      How do you help bring students into the discipline? Whether or not they are going to major in it?

·      How do you facilitate discussions? Group work? What questions do you think work best?

·      How do you teach writing? Research? Scaffold assignments?

·      What are some of your coolest/favorite assignments? What do students achieve as a result?

·      What are your coolest pairings of texts? What do they help students see?

·      How has your teaching changed over time?

·      Do you follow a theory of pedagogy? Why? What does it look like in action?

·      How do you create an inclusive classroom?

·      Is there an arc to your courses? What is it and why?

·      What technologies do you like to use in your classroom? What work do they allow students to do?

·      What professional development opportunities have you pursued? Any trainings? Certificates?

Should you tailor your teaching statement to different jobs?

Yes and no. Being on the job market is a ton of work. In my experience, I’ve found being fully on the market to be like teaching an additional class or writing a new conference paper to scratch. So, it would be really difficult to make everything custom for each job add.

A compromise position, which I highly recommend is to create an “example bank” for different job types. You then keep the principles in place in your teaching statement, but swap out the example text you discuss teaching, or mention a different class discussion topic or assignment. You’d have a little list of sentences for each potential job type (language department, women and gender studies department, 19th-century lit, science studies, etc.), and then plug in the appropriate one to the job. You can do something similar for your research, swapping out the examples from your dissertation that you refer to while keeping the basic structure and argument of your job materials intact.

What does it mean to "provide evidence of teaching effectiveness"? 

The main thing I’d say about this is that as a committee member, I want to hear about what students can do as a result of your teaching, not just about you as charismatic center. So, how do you design things that help students achieve certain results or have certain kinds of experiences?

I don’t love the quoting from student evals thing. Yes, you can say you have high teaching evals or perhaps even include them as part of a teaching portfolio, if that’s requested. However, my feeling about pulling quotes is that it’s a lot like cherry picking. Most teachers could pull some wonderful quotes or some horrible ones, and I think committee members have a good sense of this as experienced teachers themselves.

Instead, I’d focus on other metrics that are within your locus of control and show a commitment to continued development as a teacher. You can also seek out opportunities to present or publish on teaching, even if relatively informally, on a blog, etc. You might discuss developing yourself as a leader or expert through work with your center for teaching or presenting workshops through your department or your grad organization. You might seek certifications, trainings, official education, or less formal education through workshops, centers for diversity, professional orgs, reading groups, etc.

How does a candidate provide evidence of "teaching a diverse student body" or "their commitment to DEI"?

I’d like to start by giving a not cynical response to this: My institution is a large public state university where many of our students are first-gen, we’re also an emerging HIS (Hispanic Serving Institution). So, when I read statements like these, I am often thinking: Is this person going to be safe for our students? Have they thought about what it means to teach students who are the first in their family to go to college? In grad school, you may not be thinking about designations like ones I mentioned, but find out if your institution has one.

As with the teaching statement generally: Emphasize what you do vs. what you believe. How do you scaffold assignments to make class expectations transparent. How are you educating yourself? How are you interrogating canon, making your classroom a safe space, etc. If you are a white person, please do not imagine yourself as sweeping in and transforming an HSI or HBCU, this is a different, racist version of the charismatic teacher narrative.

Others are doing real work in this area, so cite them and explain how you implement ideas about inclusive classrooms or antiracist pedagogy. What’s often clear in reading these statements is the difference between candidates thinking about diversity for the first time and those who’ve been doing the work for a long time.

Last thing here: As I’m writing this, a number of states in the U.S. are dismantling anything with “DEI” in the title. However, there are faculty teaching at state institutions who still care deeply about diversity, social justice, and making higher ed more accessible. It may be the case that some schools will no longer be asking for DEI statements, but that doesn’t mean that committee members don’t care about these issues. My opinion is that it’s worth thinking about how you think about DEI no matter what. Mostly because I think it’s the right thing to do if you’re going to be in the classroom.

How do I avoid repeating information from my cover letter in my teaching statement?

First, the aforementioned example bank is your friend here. Where you might talk about a course theme in your cover letter, perhaps you’re going to discuss a particular discussion technique in the teaching philosophy. Or, while you might talk about teaching for the major in your cover letter, maybe you’ll talk about gen ed in the teaching philosophy.

The other way I think about the difference between these two docs is that the cover letter is more pitched to the job ad—discussing your ability and expertise as aligned with the particular department and course needs—and that the teaching philosophy is a bit more about you as a teacher and the kinds of classroom environments you create. So, your principles of assignment scaffolding, course design, or creating an inclusive classroom might be showcased a bit more in the teaching statement.

Okay, that’s a lot! Hopefully, some of it is useful.