During my career in Academia, I have read a lot of “Philosophy of Teaching” statements. I did this either as a search committee member or a faculty member reading an applicant’s file. Such statements started becoming mandatory by all Universities in the last decade or so. They have certainly become an essential component of an application for most academic positions. Consequently, a great deal of literature and numerous web sites exist to teach applicants how to undertake this difficult task. I have been fortunate enough never to be asked to write such a statement. However, a philosophy of teaching statement does help search committee members go through the preliminary steps of ranking applications and drawing up the short list of candidates.

I have asked most of the recent applicants I interviewed what was the most difficult part in preparing their application and they all replied: writing a “philosophy of teaching” statement. Indeed, I felt that most statements I read were embellished, laced with fancy expressions, contrived and over-enthusiastic. I have tried to avoid this when writing mine. There will be no obvious and grandiose statements like: "Teaching ranks amongst the nation’s top five prestigious professions where one is involved in shaping the future of the country ".

I feel that teaching is a means to achieve the important goals of learning and advancement of knowledge. Its main aim is to induce rational and critical thinking. These in turn develop the students’ logical reasoning and problem solving capabilities. Simply exposing a student to knowledge, via teaching, is not enough. Anyone can buy a textbook and read it. We frequently do that when we enjoy reading a novel. Indeed, if it were that simple, why bother to come to university at all! I feel that when I teach my students, they are not only being informed but are learning how I handle and think about the subject being discussed. They also understand how I interpret the facts and come to logical rational conclusions. Thus, teaching is not about my dissemination of knowledge but how my students, on the receiving end, can be taught to comprehend and develop a thinking style to make use of that knowledge. It follows then that a good teacher must be a good rational thinker. In this respect, active dialogue with the students involving questions and answers during my lectures is of vital importance. This is also why I believe that distance education is somewhat less effective than a live lecture.

For a student to efficiently assimilate the subject matter, it is best introduced as a series of sequential logical steps. Therefore it is important to choose carefully the initial starting point of a lecture. I invariably start from what the students already know and go from there. The students’ skills and knowledge become evident in the first few lectures by interacting with them in class or by looking up their marks. This is particularly useful in the courses I teach, such as reaction kinetics, quantum statistical mechanics and magnetic resonance. Similarly, as the course progresses I take a few minutes to review what was discussing in the previous lecture before beginning with new material. It is time well spent.

I believe that students better comprehend abstract concepts with everyday examples that provide context. For example, to identify a rate-determining step of a reaction, it is helpful for a student to think about coming to a lecture. The student knows that it is not speeding down the highway but the long red signal light at the university gates that will cause him/her to be late. Thus the rate-determining step is the long signal light change in this process. By analogy the student now understands that the rate-determining step is the slowest one in a multi-step reaction.

One should never tell a student that a certain step is obvious, easy and there is no need to spend time deriving it. This automatically implies that you are superior and he/she is inferior, which is not necessarily true. It only means that you are familiar with the problem and have derived it previously while they have not. This pitfall is most common when teaching mathematics, physics and physical chemistry.

In my view concerted efforts to memorize facts should be kept to a minimum or, if possible, totally eliminated. If one can reason through a derivation forgetting it is not an issue. Memorization should only be the result of being familiar with the subject for a long period of time and should come naturally.

In academic life, we tend to separate teaching and research as two separate entities. Teaching, learning and research are intimately intertwined. When I am in my research laboratory with my graduate students and research associates, we are all teaching and learning from one another as we perform our experiments. My graduate students learn from my experience, reasoning methods and experimental technique. In turn, I learn from how they think and how they respond to my suggestions. Finally we all learn new information from the novel experiments we perform.

Finally, a "Philosophy of Teaching" statement is normally required when a candidate applies for an academic position. Asking the candidate to give a mock teaching lecture usually reveals more about the candidate’s teaching abilities than a “Philosophy of Teaching” blurb. In such a situation one can visually assess the candidate’s delivery, clarity, understanding of the subject matter and his/her reactions to the students’ questions. In our department, this mock lecture is at the third or fourth year chemistry level if the position is for a Faculty member. It is at the first year (freshman) level if the position is for an Instructor. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a live performance is certainly worth volumes.

Last modified by S. M. Mattar, February 11, 2008