Teaching impact is the third teaching philosophy statement component that we are going to examine. To demonstrate your impact as an educator, you generally need some form of data, or evidence. In your teaching philosophy statement, you should refer to existing sources of evidence of your effectiveness or briefly articulate how you’re going to go about collecting evidence of the impact of your teaching and learning. It’s good practice to also describe how you have/will use that evidence to make decisions regarding how to improve your teaching practice.
Evidencing Your Impact
There are many ways in which you might collect evidence regarding your teaching and learning impact on yourself, your students, and your colleagues. Some examples include written critical reflections, student feedback on your teaching, peer observations of your teaching, and teaching awards. As noted above, you can refer to sources of evidence in your teaching philosophy statement, and they may be appropriate to attach as appendices to a broader portfolio (beyond the scope of this module). Read on to learn more about these types of evidence.
You may find it helpful to regularly reflect in writing on the different teaching methods you employ, noting the particulars of what you tried, how it appeared to be received by students, and how well you felt it worked in terms of students achieving the intended learning outcomes you set out to teach them. If the method did not execute as well as planned, you may also find it helpful to also document why you feel that may have been the case and what you might do differently in the future. While reflection may be accomplished in many ways, the important thing is that you choose an approach that works well for you. Here, we will provide an overview of one approach that is frequently used by educators: the What? So What? Now What? model.
The What? So What? Now What? model, developed by Driscoll (1994) based on Borton’s (1970) work, encourages you to first describe the experience (What?), analyze its meaning (So What?), and finally create an action plan for improvement (Now What?).
In the “What?” stage, you describe the experience, focusing on the facts and your emotions. In the “So What?” stage, you analyze the experience’s significance, reflecting on how it connects to your existing knowledge and what insights can be drawn. Finally, in the “Now What?” stage, you plan for the future, setting actionable goals and identifying steps to improve based on the reflections from the previous stages.
Student feedback on a learning experience may be collected midway through the experience (that is, as formative feedback), or at the end of the experience (that is, as summative feedback), or both. For courses, it is recommended that you collect both formative and summative feedback and that the feedback be collected anonymously.
An anonymous formative feedback measure may include specific questions, or broad questions. For example, you may ask “What has been your least favorite lesson thus far, and why?”, or you may choose to administer a broader exercise like Stop-Start-Continue where students are asked to comment on what they think you should stop, start, and continue doing in your teaching. Formative feedback is valuable in that it provides you with insight as to what you should do to improve the course, and your teaching, for the current cohort of students. Once formative feedback has been collected, it is important that you act on it or address it in some way so that students know that you are in fact listening to their concerns and being attentive to their needs.
If you a Teaching Assistant as opposed to a course instructor, do get permission from the course instructor before implementing any formative feedback measures.
When a course comes to an end, typically an institutionally-mandated course evaluation or student course experience survey is implemented by the home department. This instrument usually includes questions about the overall quality of the learning experience. Course instructors may also independently (as a separate evaluation) ask for anonymous feedback about particular elements of the course experience. For example, they might ask: “If you could make one recommendation to improve the course, what would it be, and why?”. The questions would provide the instructor with information that they could use to improve the course for future offerings.
If you are a Teaching Assistant as opposed to a course instructor, you must get permission from the instructor before implementing any summative feedback measures.
It is a valuable exercise for educators to get peer feedback on their teaching from time to time. To that end, you may wish to invite a peer into your classroom so they can observe and give you feedback on your teaching and their experience of being one of your students. Having a conversation in advance as to what you would like the observer to attend to can help to reduce ambiguity and make for a more valuable observation. Most often, instructors will have a few specific issues they’d like feedback on, as well as general feedback regarding what seems to be working well and what some recommendations might be for improvement. In debriefing the experience with your peer observer, don’t forget to inquire whether there is anything that they learned from the observation that will have an impact on how they will approach their own teaching (i.e., don’t forget to ask about your impact on them as a colleague!).
Institutions typically establish various awards – at the Teaching Assistant and instructor levels – to promote and reward teaching excellence. If you are a nominee or recipient of one of those awards, then that, too, can be cited as evidence of your teaching and learning impact in your teaching philosophy statement.
Pause for Reflection
Written critical reflections, student feedback on your teaching, peer observations of your teaching, and teaching awards are only some of the many ways in which you might go about collecting evidence of your teaching impact on yourself, students and colleagues. What methods do you use to evaluate your teaching impact? What has been the impact of your teaching on yourself, your students, and your colleagues? Answer these questions (Kenny et al., 2021) now in the Teaching Impacts section of the Crafting a Teaching Philosophy Statement: Worksheet.
Tip for the Future
If you are planning to craft a full teaching portfolio in the future (beyond the scope of this module), plan ahead. Now would be a good time for you to consider the evidence you already have that you can assemble, as well as any new evidence you may wish or need to collect.
References
Borton. T. (1970). Reach Touch and Teach: Student Concerns and Process Education. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Driscoll J. (1994). Reflective practice for practise. Senior Nurse, 13, 47-50.
Kenny, N., Aparicio-Ting, F., Beattie, T., Berenson, C., Grant, K., Jeffs, C., Lindstrom, G., Nowell, L., & Usman, F. (2021). Teaching Philosophies and Teaching Dossiers Guide: Including Leadership, Mentorship, Supervision, and EDI. Calgary, AB: Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Guide Series.