Personal Statement of Teaching Philosophy
I. Teaching Philosophy and Goals
I have one goal for my teaching: helping students to think and learn for themselves. This goal is as simple as it is illusive. The more experience I have as a teacher, the more I understand that there is no one-way of achieving my aim. Clearly, the proper focus of education is learning, not teaching; but I know that it is within a teacher's power-and thus it is the teacher's responsibility-to create the conditions necessary to allow students to learn. How best to create these conditions is the question. Although doing so involves performance, it is not a performing art. Although it requires the rigor and
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II. Teaching Methods and Strategies
I am hopeful that Aristotle is correct about the existence of a basic human desire for understanding, and yet I recognize that students have had a diverse mixture of experiences with learning and knowledge pursuits. Sometimes a student's educational experience has nurtured and developed that desire and begun to produce a virtuous intellectual cycle; other times, past experiences have quashed intellectual curiosity. Because students possess different learning styles and attitudes, what constitutes an inspirational challenge to one student may overwhelm or discourage another. I thus vary my teaching style regularly and use different educational methods based on a diverse set of strategies and techniques.
Some students learn from having a dialogue with their teacher and each other. For these students I prepare discussion questions, make them
Preference, discussion and feedback are important, because different students have diverse opinions, backgrounds, fears, perspectives, expectations and questions. Eventually, more discussions and feedback allow more understanding for both instructor and learner. They actually allow the instructor to evaluate students. Sometimes the questions asked are more towards an insight or a goal the student or the instructor is trying to reach. For
Dr. Seuss once said “it is better to know how to learn than to know.” My main goal as a teacher is not to make them learn the subject, although that is essential, but to teach them how to learn. My 8th grade class is a diverse group that comes from a complex society. There are differences among the district, state, learning styles of the students, home structure, and the readiness of the students all that need to be addressed within my classroom.
Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.
Successful teaching occurs when the teacher is able to select the most efficient method for reaching out to each student’s individual style of learning and inspire students to rise to their highest potential. While the responsibilities of a teacher are extensive (as one can serve as a teacher, a friend, a counselor, a disciplinarian, an entertainer, a facilitator), I believe that students should play a big part in shaping own education as well.
Unfortunately, the way we practice education in schools is not always related to these purposes. Some teachers prefer to talk rather than teach. What I mean by this is that some teachers think teaching is just delivering the information and the facts from a book directly to the students. When we asked them why they would reply because this is what teacher should be. One day I was working on a group assignment, and a question that we had to answer was what a concept in schools that our group should revise and why. Therefore, we decided to revise the traditional way of teaching (delivering information) to help students to have critical skills. During our meeting, one of the group’s members said, “I have been teaching for twenty years, and I
SC1 Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of initiatives in student learning including the Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 and the Assessment and Reporting Advice and the ability to implement curriculum programs consistent with their intent.
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, of Ghana said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family” (nobelprize.org). My ambition to become an educator stems from a desire to help children grow into productive and successful adults. I am a mother of six children. As I have guided my individual children through the different stages of their childhood, adventures, adversities, and educational experiences, I have come to realize that all children have similar basic needs. Along with food, water, shelter, and clothing, children have the need to be accepted, protected, nurtured, and an innate desire for knowledge. Every child has the ability to learn and mankind can only thrive through the power of knowledge.
Do you have a philosophy on education? I do. What I want to discuss is my personal view of education. I’m going to talk about the nature of students. I am going to talk about the nature of knowledge and whether or not it is absolute or relative. The purpose of education, the method, and the curriculum will be discussed also. We are going to look at some of my philosophical views on education and my professional development plans. When I am through you will have my philosophy of education paper.
In ensuring that genuine learning transpires in the classroom, there are various issues that educators must concern their selves with. Understanding and responding to these issues require extensive knowledge of various theories in education as well as in the application of such theories. One such issue which is the focus of this paper is that on how learning occurs. Student learning is the primary goal of any academic institution, and leading students to achieve learning is the purpose of every educator. However in order for teachers to be able to lead students to learn, it is only logical to consider that teachers must know how learning actually
When we are children we aspire many goals and careers. Once we complete, our K-12 education, reality must set in. What are best attributes to a career? What would sastify us most? What is the single most defying career choice that is best for us? During the past year, I have gone from one major to the next and back again. It is definitely a stressful time in one’s life. The choices we make now will have a lasting effect on us. Education was my beginning major and yes, through every obstacle it is the major I have chosen. Teachers possess a difficult job because they inspire and create our future nation. I want to be a part of that I want to help a child achieve their short and long-term goals. When
Education is the process of learning that can take place anywhere and at any time. I believe that creativity and activity as well as books and lessons are essential to the learning process. As a teacher, I hope to instill in the children a sense of knowledge and self-worth that will remain with them throughout their lives.
When I started as a teacher I understood it's not just the students who do the learning, but the teacher does as well. You teach and you learn - and the two are linked. It is not just something you do while you are on an initial training course or when you are a qualified teacher. Instead, it is how you could be throughout your teaching career.
In the field of education there could arise many philosophical ideas of each individual teacher. Many of the past philosophies have been and still are used in today’s education programs, such as the Socratic method. My philosophy will also contain some of the many philosophies of the past and possibly the future. I will state the nature of students, the nature of knowledge, the purpose of public education, method, and curriculum according to my own philosophies, which also may be based the philosophical ideas of previous individuals.
At the beginning of my teaching career I had a great deal of knowledge. I knew the educational jargon and the favored teaching strategies, but what I lacked was the wisdom to effectively utilize my knowledge. For me, teaching is a continuous quest to obtain the wisdom necessary to help my students learn. Sometimes this wisdom is obvious as I work with the “golden children,” the children destined for success. But more often than not, it has come from the “problem children,” those unmotivated, hostile and obstinate children who dare me to teach them. It is the “problem students” that get the credit for making me a better teacher. They are the ones that force me to seek the wisdom necessary for success. They are the ones that challenge
Throughout the majority of my education, including college, I have felt like a passive member of the classroom. Teachers saw me as a clear slate that needed to be filled with information. I consumed countless facts, and memorized numerous processes, most of them not being my own. This approach to teaching has proven to be unsuccessful to the goals of education. Students are diverse, with their own learning styles and their own knowledge that they bring to the table, and these should be supported and expanded on in the classroom. The goal of education is to support learners and thinkers, and not to condition minds to all think the same ways.