Corrall, Sheila and Folk, Amanda and Pullman, Ethan
(2019)
Reflect, Express, Compare: Reimagine Your Teacher Identity with the TeachPhil U-model and Strengths-Based Reflective Practice.
In: ACRL 2019: Recasting the Narrative, April 10-13, 2019, Cleveland, OH.
Abstract
A statement of teaching philosophy is usually required for academic job applications, promotion dossiers, and teaching awards, and similarly for library faculty. But everyone who teaches or supports learning can benefit from the insights and self-knowledge gained from the reflection that informs the writing of a teaching philosophy. The process can reveal tensions between practices and beliefs that illuminate discomfort in teaching roles. It can also build instructor confidence by clarifying strengths and areas for development, and librarians have used such statements to assert their identity as teachers, individually and collectively.
Advice on writing teaching philosophies typically advocates working step-by-step from fundamental principles to everyday practices in a top-down sequence. However, our experience supporting graduate students and new professionals shows this process can be challenging for people with limited educational preparation for teaching and little exposure to pedagogical theory. We propose a new flexible model to make the task more accessible, and enable personalization of both the learning-development process and the end-product. Incorporating ideas from organizational learning, reflective practice, and strategic management, it integrates top-down, bottom-up, and middle-up-down approaches; emphasizes positive, strengths-based reflection; and, uniquely, lets people choose their own entry-point (such as an area they feel confident describing). So they can start by reflecting on their concrete experiences of teaching (what they do) and work their way toward abstract concepts of pedagogy (what they think) by asking “why” questions, as an alternative to moving from theory to practice; alternatively, they can start in the middle and move in either direction to cover all elements.
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| Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item
(Other)
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| Creators/Authors: |
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| Date: |
12 April 2019 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Event Title: |
ACRL 2019: Recasting the Narrative |
| Event Dates: |
April 10-13, 2019 |
| Event Type: |
Conference |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Computing and Information > Library and Information Science |
| Refereed: |
No |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Academic libraries, Appreciative reflection, Instruction librarians, Professional development, Reflective practice, Teaching philosophy |
| Official URL: |
https://s4.goeshow.com/acrl/national/2019/conferen... |
| Related URLs: |
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| Additional Information: |
Submission includes slides and handouts produced for workshop delivered at 2019 conference of Association of College and Research Libraries |
| Date Deposited: |
29 Apr 2019 17:58 |
| Last Modified: |
29 Apr 2019 17:58 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/36651 |
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