Demystifying the Dossier: Drafting Your Statement of Teaching Philosophy

Facilitators: 
Cora McCloy, Faculty Liaison Coordinator, SoTL, CTSI
Samantha Chang, Faculty Liaison Coordinator, Teaching, Learning & Technology, CTSI

This webinar is part of the Demystifying the Dossier Series. Faculty are welcome to attend one or multiple workshops in the series; recordings will be available for all sessions online.

At the University of Toronto, a teaching dossier must be submitted as part of the formal review process for tenure and continuing status. Beyond the information included in an academic CV, a teaching dossier describes and documents an instructor's teaching expertise, goals and priorities for teaching and learning, contributions to course and curriculum design efforts, evidence of student impact, and evidence of teaching leadership.

This session focuses on one of the key components of the teaching dossier: the opening Statement of Teaching Philosophy (STP). A strong statement summarizes and highlights the core beliefs and principles of an educator while also providing a conceptual framework for the dossier materials that follow. It needs to provide enough information, evidence, and examples from your teaching to convey a vivid sense of the values and approaches of an instructor, yet also needs to be clear and concise enough to be meaningful to the reader of the dossier.

Participants in this workshop will: 

• Identify key elements of a STP
• Review steps to follow when preparing to write the STP 
• Learn strategies to interpret, connect, and integrate sources of evidence (e.g., course evaluations, mid-course feedback, peer observations of teaching) 
• Practice articulating key aspects of their teaching and integrating evidence to support claims of effectiveness  

The goal is for participants to leave the session with a clear sense of what steps to take to enhance their drafts. Participants will be provided a digital workbook prior to the webinar and this document will form the basis of the session activities. Please note that this session will not focus on how to prepare/compile the actual dossier itself—for this topic, please register for Preparing the Teaching Dossier.

*** Optional pre-webinar work ***

Consider reviewing the following CTSI asynchronous resources regarding Identifying and Articulating Teaching Success:

• 7 Steps to Identifying and Articulating Teaching Success and Introduction to Educational Leadership Video (26:34)
• 7 Steps to Identifying and Articulating Teaching Success and Introduction to Educational Leadership Slide Deck PDF
• Demystifying the Dossier Workbook PDF