ACADEMIA Letters Teaching Philosophy as a Mechanism for a More Inclusive Teaching and Learning Process Karla Loya Increasingly, faculty hiring committees require teaching philosophy statements as part of a job application. Yet, doctoral training seldom provides opportunities for future instructors to develop their instructional stances, let alone statements. A teaching philosophy is meant to guide instructional decisions, but without requirements for faculty to use or update their teaching philosophies, it is unknown how often they are applied. A teaching philosophy “reflects an individual’s beliefs and values about teaching and learning, often including concrete examples of the ways in which that individual enacts those beliefs” (Bowne, 2017, p. 59). Carefully developed, it can be a mechanism for instruc- tors to create more inclusive classrooms (Loya, 2020). Teaching philosophies are similar to paradigms. Like a teaching philosophy, a paradigm is a “basic set of beliefs that guide action” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 183). Paradigms are used to position one’s stance as an edu- cational researcher, for example. Some paradigms commonly used in education (sometimes in combination) include positivism, critical theory, interpretivism, postmodernism and femi- nism. A paradigm includes four elements: ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodol- ogy. I propose these terms as useful components to include when reflecting on our teaching philosophy, not merely as a written statement, but as a set of beliefs that guide our instruction as we foster a more inclusive process of teaching and learning. Ontology Ontology “raises questions about the nature of reality and the nature of the human being in the world” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 183). Ontology represents what is around us and how Academia Letters, March 2021 Corresponding Author: Karla Loya, karlaloya1@gmail.com Citation: Loya, K. (2021). Teaching Philosophy as a Mechanism for a More Inclusive Teaching and Learning Process. Academia Letters, Article 409. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL409. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0