Writing a Personal Statement



WRITING A PERSONAL STATEMENT

Rather than summarizing your accomplishments, your personal statement should reflect your personal investment and views pertinent to the award category. Criteria that might be best addressed in a personal statement are goals and personal preparation (including on-going faculty development, and reflection about improvements). The personal statement should not exceed two pages but may refer to other narratives or appendices that further describe or document different aspects or areas of your educational efforts. To help you get started thinking about how you might write a personal statement, refer to the Personal Statement Reflection Activity below. You may also refer to the examples in each award category.

PERSONAL STATEMENT REFLECTION ACTIVITY

Teaching and Evaluation

1) Why do you teach; what impact (i.e. changes, growth, development, or new behaviors) do you hope to foster in learners?

2) How will your impact on learners be different than the impact of other faculty; what makes your contribution unique?

3) What constitutes effective teaching? How do you know you’ve done a good job? Why is it important to do a good job as a teacher?

4) If you could no longer teach, what would you miss most? What is your personal reward for teaching?

5) Assuming that “if you’re not progressing, you’re regressing”, what do you do to progress or improve your skills and strategies as a teacher?

6) Supposing you had sufficient incentive to make significant improvements to your teaching…

• what would you improve? why?

• what would you not change?

• how would you go about making the improvements?

• are you doing these things anyway, just because you want to “be the best you can be”?

7) Why are you qualified to teach? If learners were to have a choice as to whom they could ask to teach them, what learners would choose you? why? (What are the good things about you as a teacher?)

Educational Leadership

1) Why do you accept leadership responsibilities? What impact do you

hope to have on learners through your leadership activities?

2) What do you bring to your leadership that other faculty may not? What is your special contribution?

3) When are you most effective as a leader? Least Effective? What do you do to maximize your effectiveness?

4) Why are you qualified to be a leader? How are your qualifications stronger now than they were 5 years ago?

5) What brings you the most satisfaction in your leadership role(s)?

6) In what ways do you use your experience and skills to benefit others?

Development of Enduring Educational Materials

1) What inspired you to create enduring educational materials?

2) What impact on learners are you aiming for? How are your enduring materials unique?  What informational need/void have they filled?

3) What characterizes effective materials? How can you determine their impact? Why is this method (or unique type of material) important to your teaching work?

4)  What do you find most satisfying about the creation of enduring educational materials?

 

5)  What are your qualifications, specific background/interests, etc., relating to the development of materials? If special development was needed, describe.

 6) How have you communicated these methods and/or the importance of this approach to others?

 

 7) How has creating enduring materials affected your professional growth?

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