Plugs, Play, Pedagogy

Episode 2: Attack of the Cloned Teaching Statements

Produced and recorded by Kyle Stedman (plugsplaypedagogy@writingcommons.org; @kstedman), assistant professor of English at Rockford University, in cooperation with KairosCast and Writing Commons.

Transcript available here.

In search of answers to why teaching philosophy statements bother me so much, I share insights from three experts on the subject:

• Laura Runge (@laura_runge) from University of South Florida: We spoke about the rhetorical stance of the teaching philosophy statement, why 1 page is a good length, and all sorts of other things.
• Karen Kelsky (@professorisin) from theprofessorisin.com: We hear Tara Wood from Rockford University read Kelsky's post “The Dreaded Teaching Statement: Eight Pitfalls.” You will also hear the sound of magic wands; this is not a joke.
• Kathie Gossett (@gossettphd) from Iowa State University: We spoke specifically about how digital scholars represent their teaching online, including (but not limited to) the teaching statement.

After those three parts, I mention the following resources:

• Kathryn Hume's book Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for Humanities PhDs
• Cheryl Ball's site Get a Job!, including her page on teaching philosophies, and her articles at Inside Higher Ed.
• Karen Kelsky's site The Professor Is In.
• “Teaching with Technology: Remediating the Teaching Philosophy Statement” from Computers and Composition 29 (2012) by Phill Alexander, Karissa Chabot, Matt Cox, Dànielle Nicole DeVoss, Barb Gerber, Staci Perryman-Clark, Julie Platt, Donnie Johnson Sackey, and Mary Wendt.

Our theme music is by Cactus May at Ohio University; check out his work at http://heycactus.weebly.com. You also heard 3 tracks from OverClocked ReMix: “In the Green Gloom” by Argle, “Zanarkand String Quartet,” arranged by GrayFox1217, and Disco Dan, "Blue Lightning."