Foregrounding a teaching philosophy statement in scaffolding reflective practice and professional development of higher education teachers in Lesotho

Abstract

AbstractAt some point in the teaching career, educators are expected to develop a teaching philosophy statement (TPS). This could be during the initial teacher training programme; when applying for a teaching post or when seeking promotion. It could also be a component of a continuous professional development programme that teachers undergo or a component of a teaching portfolio they have to submit for a specified purpose. This paper explored the extent to which articulating a teaching philosophy statement promotes reflective practice and also advance the professional development of higher education teachers. Narrativism was employed as the over-arching paradigm for this study. A qualitative approach was adopted, and data was collected through an online qualitative or open ended questionnaire, in which the participants were requested to narrate their teaching philosophy statements. Thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the data. The findings revealed that writing a TPS does, to a large extent, enable a reflective practice. Furthermore, the exercise promotes professional development by allowing teachers to rethink their practices.

Keywords

• constructivism
• higher education
• higher education teachers
• teaching philosophy statement
• reflective practice
• professional development