Gradlink is an electronic newsletter designed to serve UC Davis graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and the campus community.
Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Scholar Resources
Pathways Career Symposium 2008
Writing the Teaching Philosophy Statement
(in conjunction with the Teaching Resources Center)
Time: 9:30-10:30 am
Room: 6 Wellman
To develop more fully as an instructor of undergraduates, many post-docs and graduate students choose to develop a statement of teaching philosophy. Whether you plan to use your statement in job applications or to clarify your goals as an instructor, this workshop is designed to take the mystery out of writing a statement about which you feel confident. In this workshop, you will consider the audience of your statement, reflect on your own ideas regarding teaching and learning, begin to develop the content of your statement, and hear tips on crafting a clear and meaningful statement. We will focus on developing strategies for making your teaching philosophy statement valuable to your continued professional development as well as appropriate for communicating your values and practices to others in academia.
Workshop Leaders:
Mikaela Huntzinger, Ph.D., Coordinator - TA and Faculty Programs, Teaching Resources Center
Mikaela Huntzinger is deeply concerned with all aspects of teaching at the college level. She
co-instructs the Seminar on College Teaching and supervises the TA Consultants here on campus.
She has also served as a TA and a guest lecturer for several biology and ecology courses at UCD
and American River College, and she is co-author of
How to Do Ecology: A Concise Handbook
(Princeton UP, 2006). Mikaela has worked with many people writing their statements of teaching
philosophy. She is interested in helping graduate students and post-docs write statements that
accurately reflect their interests in teaching and will help them get the position they want in
academia.
Madhu Rajagopal, Ph.D. Candidate, Physiology & Membrane Biology
Madhumitha Rajagopal, a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology. She has been a Teaching Assistant for many advanced physiology labs. In addition, she has served as a Teaching Assistant Consultant for two years, where she has developed and led seminars on teaching-related topics. One of her many interests is cross-cultural issues in teaching; she belongs to the International TA Workgroup on campus and is co-leading a series of workshops for International TAs this spring. She is very interested in helping people translate their teaching-related skills experiences into a strong and accurate statement of teaching philosophy.