Teaching Philosophy in a Teaching Portfolio: Domain Knowledge and Guidance

Teaching philosophy defines the beliefs and ideas that guide practices in teaching and learning. Writing teaching philosophy statements for promotion or employment is daunting for inexperienced new faculty members.

This article aims to discuss the principles of relevant educational domains that academics need to know to be well informed when writing their teaching philosophy. It also provides a new perspective on how to write the personal statements.

Journal articles published in English language between 2018 and 2023 (as well as important older ones) in electronic databases (Google Scholar, MEDLINE, PubMed, and SCOPUS) were searched, sifted, reviewed and used for this narrative literature review. Additionally, the websites of educational organisations such as higher education institutions were selected using convenience sampling method and searched to ascertain practices.

Educators need to link teaching philosophy statements to the literature about teaching. However, there is a scarcity of literature that provides a comprehensive overview of the required domain knowledge. These domains are Supervision, Curriculum development, Assessment, Mentorship, Pedagogy, and Scholarship of teaching and learning (S-CAMPS domains).

Using various teaching practices and models to achieve the best quality learning and valued transformation is crucial in achieving a comprehensive Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Therefore, developing a personal philosophy provides the opportunity for reflection on utilizing the theory-practice-philosophy perspective best to serve the students, academic institution, and society.