How to define your Teaching Values
Editor’s Note: This blog post is one of a three-part series about how to write a values-based teaching philosophy. In this blog post, we (April Love and Laurel Hitchcock) offer a process for identifying your teaching values. The second post covers tips for writing and presenting a values-based teaching philosophy, and in the third post, we share our own values-based teaching philosophies that resulted from this process. This post is cross-published on April’s Blog – Genuine Curiosity: Navigating Nursing Education Now.
Having an articulated teaching philosophy is an expectation in higher education, but writing a teaching philosophy is hard work. It requires an educator to define their professional identity in a way that explains why and how they teach. Additionally, today’s educators are constantly asked to weigh in on various issues, such as when, how, and how often to use innovation for instruction, how much time should be focused on content versus reserved for flexible discussion, and whether to use a traditional or flipped classroom model, where there’s no clear right or wrong answer. And, because the topics can be as diverse as the courses and students we teach, it’s important to have a values-based framework that can support your decision-making process. Having a clear understanding of your personal values and, perhaps more importantly in this instance, your teaching values can help you navigate challenging or crucial conversations by giving you the language to express your views and understand their origin.
The process of getting to one’s teaching philosophy is reflective, requiring time and deep thinking about one’s beliefs related to teaching and learning. Identifying one’s teaching values offers an educator clarity about what is important and meaningful, and makes it easier to set and prioritize goals as well as make decisions by aligning these tasks with one’s values. Not only is the process highly personalized, so is the end product. While there is no one right way to explore one’s teaching values, we have adapted a common approach for identifying values to focus on the practices of teaching and learning.
Start with your first impression.
Review this list of teaching value words. Think about the times in your teaching career when you were most inspired and energized. Which words jump out and resonate in your teaching style or with your student interactions? Which words stand out as the “gold standard” you’re looking to obtain in your career?
The goal is to come up with no more than five values that best describe the “roots” of your teaching practice. The list will serve as your fence posts, giving you a space to build the rest of your teaching philosophy. You can cross out words that don’t speak to your primary values, circle words that do or use a combination of annotations to help sort through the assorted values.
Reflect, reflect, and then commit.
Don’t limit yourself to one session for this exercise. It can be overwhelming to try to narrow down your priorities, especially when all of the terms have merit and a place in education. Do this exercise in an unpressured setting where you can reflect without stress or time constraints. Because you want these words to resonate consistently, try them out over a few days or weeks to see what sticks.
In the first round, just acknowledge any word that strikes a chord. Even consider setting a timer if you’re one of those people who like to dwell and reflect as you go. Let your instinct guide you. Then, a day or so later – whenever it’s convenient to return to the exercise – take that narrowed list and do another rapid-fire elimination round. What still speaks to you? What’s the loudest? What feels redundant? Now, you’re starting to identify the themes.
Next, select five value words that others would use to describe how you teach. Consider the varied perspectives of your supervisors, your co-workers or team members, and – perhaps most importantly – your students. Compare the two lists, looking for similarities and differences. Consider reserving time to do this immediately following a teaching session or student meeting, which will give you recent behaviors to hold against your evolving list. With this new insight, did your previously identified values change?
As a final round, identify which five words reflect how you would like to teach and have others describe how you teach. Again, compare with your list and note any similarities. Are you already living by the values you prioritized, or did you identify values you are striving to achieve? At this point, when you look at your list, you should feel a connection to it, an impression that suggests this describes who I am and who I want to be as an educator.
Use it. Don’t lose it.
Once you’ve identified your values, or the “why” you do what you do, you can start paying attention to how your teaching values show up in your work. Your goal here is twofold; one is to confirm and get comfortable with your newly identified teaching values, and two is to find concrete examples of how you apply your teaching values that can be incorporated into a teaching philosophy statement.
Start by writing your teaching values on a sticky note, in your planner, or on your mobile device. Keep them handy so you can refer back to them as needed. Do not worry if you cannot remember your teaching values day-to-day. Being intentional about incorporating our values into our teaching takes practice; it will get easier with time.
Give yourself an extended period of time (a few days, a week, or maybe a month) to recognize and document how your teaching values show up in your course prep, class sessions, and interactions with students. Write down as many examples as you can. For example, if one of your core values is fairness, you might note how this value shows up in your grading or during classroom discussions.
If you previously wrote a teaching philosophy, compare your values to the statement by highlighting sentences or phrases that connect with your teaching values. You can also connect your values to common teaching practices, professional ethical codes for your discipline, or educational theories that you use or support your ideals.
During this time, you can also consider the following questions:
- What are some current or past examples of how your teaching actions have aligned with your teaching values?
- What are the outcomes when you practice your teaching values?
- What books or articles should you be reading that connect with your teaching values?
- Who in your professional life models your teaching values?
- How do your values connect to or address issues of equity, inclusion, power, and oppression that may play a role in teaching and learning?
If you find that one of your teaching values is not working for you, try to identify why or go back to the list of teaching values to see if another value is a better fit. Remember, finding and aligning our values is a process of reflection. Further, it is not uncommon for values to change over time, as we grow and mature in our work and teaching. You might even repeat this process several times in your career.
You will know you are done with this process when you have clarity with your teaching values and concrete examples or “evidence” of how you apply these values in your classrooms, with your students, and with your peers. The next step is to transform your teaching values and evidence into statements and visual artifacts to share with others and align your future actions and decisions with your teaching values. See the next blog post in our series about how to write your values-based teaching philosophy.
How to cite:
Love, A.J. & Hitchcock, L.I. (2021, July 30). How to define your Teaching Values. Teaching and Learning in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2021/07/30/how-to-define-your-teaching-values/.
