• Do you recall a presentation you did where you felt like you really got your point across? What were the elements of that presentation that worked well?
• Have you ever tutored students? What did you learn from that about helping someone else learn something you know well?
• Did you ever take the lead in a group project and guide it to the finish line? What did you learn about keeping everyone on target?
• Did you ever run a workshop or lead part of a class? What was that experience like? What did you learn from it?
• Have you ever talked to your professors about how they teach class and/or why they teach in the way they do? If you haven’t, schedule a time to talk with your favorite professors and learn more about their approach, best practices, and lessons learned over their teaching career.
• Have you engaged with any pedagogical literature or articles, newsletters, or podcasts about teaching? While this is not essential to a standout teaching philosophy, if you are familiar with these things, mention them! Think about which learning theories, new ideas, or approaches resonated with you.

Be honest about your experience and demonstrate that you’re willing to grow and learn as an educator. Even those of us with decades of teaching under our belts are still learning and growing. Being willing to try things and then refine to make them better is a great trait in a teacher.

Don't fake your personality. While you can and will grow and change, make sure your statement reflects who you are now. If your nature is more subdued and reserved, don’t claim you’ll start every class with a dance party because it could build community. If you’re generally flexible and open in your daily life, you don’t need to claim you’ll be super strict with your students. You don’t need to be anyone other than who you are.

• It’s okay to fail—especially when you’re experimenting with something new! That’s to be expected. What’s important is how you learn from that failure. Being able to discuss lessons you’ve learned from a teaching experience gone wrong can be a powerful inclusion so long as the mistake was an honest one and you show that you learned from it. You can also intentionally fail, creating an opportunity for your students to correct your “errors” and learn from them. It’s also a chance to model how you want them to handle their own mistakes.
• People who become teachers are often those who excel in classes. However, your classroom is going to have people from a wide range of capabilities, including different backgrounds, philosophies, goals, learning styles, and mental and physical abilities. How will you make your classroom experiences and lessons connect with all of them?
• The length of the class, the size of the class, and whether or not the class has preset components (textbooks, tests, schedules, topics to cover) can all seem like limiting factors to your teaching. However, the way you adapt to these and create a successful learning environment with those conditions can form the basis of a great teaching experience. Even if you’re going to teach in a radically different environment, you can show what you will take from your first environment and adapt, change, or carry over into the type of environment you’ll be teaching in.

Think about a teacher you learned a lot from.

• What did they do to support your learning? List the characteristics that stand out to you below, including their teaching methods, disposition as a teacher, and other attributes.
• What were exercises or pedagogical approaches they used that really connected with you and your class? If you’ve taught and had a student comment on a way you supported their learning, use that example!

• What does a good classroom environment feel like to you?
• If you had a teacher who created a good environment, what would you want to replicate about it in your own teaching? If you’ve been teaching, talk about how you’ve designed classroom learning environments that worked.

• What were some assignments you’ve done that really helped you learn? Why do you think those things worked well? If you’ve taught, discuss assignments that you’ve used that clearly demonstrated student learning.

Think about instances where you’ve been in a position to teach something to someone else, either in a classroom or another setting.

• What did you enjoy about that experience?
• What was hard?
• What did you learn about teaching from it?

As a graduate student embarking on teaching others, or as a new faculty member, it’s likely you’ve been successful as a student through much of your life.

• When you’ve talked with friends or classmates who’ve struggled, or when you’ve faced a struggle to learn yourself, what are some of the things that helped support learning?
• What are some of the things that didn’t work?
• If you've encountered situations where you have had the opportunity to teach someone who doesn't learn in a traditional way or for whom a traditional lesson wasn't effective, discuss how you found a way to help them and/or how you modified your lesson overall to be more inclusive.

Reflect on your own personality and disposition.

• How do you envision showing up as your authentic self in a classroom?