Teaching Philosophy Statement
A Holistic and Caring Student-Centered Approach
I am energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate about not only my subjects, but also learning and education in general. If I can't get excited for school, why should my students?
Education has been built on a foundation in which the model of learning was that students absorb what the teacher tells them and then they try to understand after. They become these passive sponges of knowledge, ready to release their regurgitated knowledge onto an assessment when it is time to somewhat care. As a result, many students now only care about the exit-result of education and for the most part, not the actual learning in education.
I want to be the person who changes that mentality in students. I want students to want to come to my class, because it’s fun, interesting, useful, and maybe, just maybe to learn something without realizing they learnt something.
I view myself more as a facilitator, mentor, or guide of learning, rather than as a super expert of knowledge who delivers information straight down. No more students absorbing and regurgitating! Teaching and learning should be a collaborative exercise in which both mentor and student learn from each other and take responsibility for their learning. When planning a curriculum or interacting with students, I am always conscious of their different learning styles, what their prior knowledge is, and their goals.
There are a number of themes that I focus on accomplishing for my students, which I think are critical to the teaching and learning process:
1. Making learning fun, interesting, relatable, and student-centered.
I believe people learn best when they have fun and are actively engaged. Thus, I strive to make my classroom dynamic and fun. I make sure to use a variety of student-centered teaching activities, such as “predict-observe-explain” or “explore first, explain later”, or self-directed discovery learning. Cooperative learning activities can also be a good supplement, such as jigsaws. These activities directly engage students in the material and give them opportunities to achieve a level of mastery. To help them with this, I facilitate them through using scaffolding and lessons built on Bloom’s taxonomy.
Many students want to be shown why a concept or technique is useful or interesting before they want to learn about it. As an educator, I dig deeper and find out what interests them. Then, I incorporate that into my lessons. For example, one of my favourite parts of one of my lessons is teaching how to make a dichotomous key using Pokemon, and it has always been a successful one.
2. Providing choice in their learning.
The learner should be in control of their learning and how they demonstrate all their learning.
Giving students as much control over their own education as possible allows them to take responsibility for their own learning. I like the idea of giving students topic sheets at the beginning of the course and letting them rank what they want to learn. They become more engaged, and more eager to learn, because they decided what they want this class to be like for them.
3. Praising and giving feedback positively and constructively, but making sure to praise their effort or process and not their intelligence or abilities.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle a student has to face when trying to learn is themselves. Praise can be very important to help pull a student out of an unmotivated pothole. I give positive praise for all good behaviours and performances I see. I also use constructive feedback that is nonjudgmental and pertain to performance, not the student themselves. I emphasize and guide students through opportunities to improve and moving forward. For praise to be most effective, tasks should be realistic and challenging, but not beyond mastery. Thus, I give students incremental challenges, and design assignments that are appropriately challenging in view of their experience and aptitude.
I also emphasize praise on effort, and not intelligence, based on research from Dweck (1998), who found that praising for intelligence can undermine students’ performance and mindset, while praising for effort can motivate it.
4. Providing a learning environment that is positive, respectful, and inclusive to all.
From the beginning, I want to emphasize inclusivity, mutual respect, and safety in my classroom. Together as a class, I will allow students to make an “understandings” contract, as well as an appropriate consequences contract, in case there ever come to be any “misunderstandings.” Hate, discrimination, and disrespect, especially based on qualities like sexual orientation, race, culture, and ableism, will not be tolerated at all, and together as a class, I will emphasize this and also encourage the students to think about these issues, as well as including a component of it in the contract.
I will also emphasize open discussion, respect for opinions, and that my classroom is safe space.
I will incorporate team-building, leadership, and diversity activities from day 1 and throughout the year. I feel like these are just as important as the subject curriculum and that students can learn more about themselves and each other from them.
My classroom will be a safe place to make mistakes, learn from each other, and have the opportunity to explore and direct their own learning. This also helps to foster an environment that emphasizes creativity and curiosity and a love, if not respect, for learning.
5. Being caring, approachable and building positive relationships.
It is so important to build rapport and positive relationships with students. Sometimes teachers are brilliant in which they present their subjects in a way that catch students’ interest, helped to clarify difficult topics, and put knowledge into context so that its relevance was apparent.
On the other hand, sometimes the only thing a student might remember about a course is that there was a teacher in their life who cared about them, who taught them these cool things or these skills that they now use today; they remember the great stories, or jokes, or demonstrations the teacher showed in class, they remember how helpful and approachable a teacher was when they needed help. With either or both situations, I want to be that unforgettable educator that makes a positive difference in a student’s life.
I am energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate about not only my subjects, but also learning and education in general. If I can't get excited for school, why should my students?
Education has been built on a foundation in which the model of learning was that students absorb what the teacher tells them and then they try to understand after. They become these passive sponges of knowledge, ready to release their regurgitated knowledge onto an assessment when it is time to somewhat care. As a result, many students now only care about the exit-result of education and for the most part, not the actual learning in education.
I want to be the person who changes that mentality in students. I want students to want to come to my class, because it’s fun, interesting, useful, and maybe, just maybe to learn something without realizing they learnt something.
I view myself more as a facilitator, mentor, or guide of learning, rather than as a super expert of knowledge who delivers information straight down. No more students absorbing and regurgitating! Teaching and learning should be a collaborative exercise in which both mentor and student learn from each other and take responsibility for their learning. When planning a curriculum or interacting with students, I am always conscious of their different learning styles, what their prior knowledge is, and their goals.
There are a number of themes that I focus on accomplishing for my students, which I think are critical to the teaching and learning process:
1. Making learning fun, interesting, relatable, and student-centered.
I believe people learn best when they have fun and are actively engaged. Thus, I strive to make my classroom dynamic and fun. I make sure to use a variety of student-centered teaching activities, such as “predict-observe-explain” or “explore first, explain later”, or self-directed discovery learning. Cooperative learning activities can also be a good supplement, such as jigsaws. These activities directly engage students in the material and give them opportunities to achieve a level of mastery. To help them with this, I facilitate them through using scaffolding and lessons built on Bloom’s taxonomy.
Many students want to be shown why a concept or technique is useful or interesting before they want to learn about it. As an educator, I dig deeper and find out what interests them. Then, I incorporate that into my lessons. For example, one of my favourite parts of one of my lessons is teaching how to make a dichotomous key using Pokemon, and it has always been a successful one.
2. Providing choice in their learning.
The learner should be in control of their learning and how they demonstrate all their learning.
Giving students as much control over their own education as possible allows them to take responsibility for their own learning. I like the idea of giving students topic sheets at the beginning of the course and letting them rank what they want to learn. They become more engaged, and more eager to learn, because they decided what they want this class to be like for them.
3. Praising and giving feedback positively and constructively, but making sure to praise their effort or process and not their intelligence or abilities.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle a student has to face when trying to learn is themselves. Praise can be very important to help pull a student out of an unmotivated pothole. I give positive praise for all good behaviours and performances I see. I also use constructive feedback that is nonjudgmental and pertain to performance, not the student themselves. I emphasize and guide students through opportunities to improve and moving forward. For praise to be most effective, tasks should be realistic and challenging, but not beyond mastery. Thus, I give students incremental challenges, and design assignments that are appropriately challenging in view of their experience and aptitude.
I also emphasize praise on effort, and not intelligence, based on research from Dweck (1998), who found that praising for intelligence can undermine students’ performance and mindset, while praising for effort can motivate it.
4. Providing a learning environment that is positive, respectful, and inclusive to all.
From the beginning, I want to emphasize inclusivity, mutual respect, and safety in my classroom. Together as a class, I will allow students to make an “understandings” contract, as well as an appropriate consequences contract, in case there ever come to be any “misunderstandings.” Hate, discrimination, and disrespect, especially based on qualities like sexual orientation, race, culture, and ableism, will not be tolerated at all, and together as a class, I will emphasize this and also encourage the students to think about these issues, as well as including a component of it in the contract.
I will also emphasize open discussion, respect for opinions, and that my classroom is safe space.
I will incorporate team-building, leadership, and diversity activities from day 1 and throughout the year. I feel like these are just as important as the subject curriculum and that students can learn more about themselves and each other from them.
My classroom will be a safe place to make mistakes, learn from each other, and have the opportunity to explore and direct their own learning. This also helps to foster an environment that emphasizes creativity and curiosity and a love, if not respect, for learning.
5. Being caring, approachable and building positive relationships.
It is so important to build rapport and positive relationships with students. Sometimes teachers are brilliant in which they present their subjects in a way that catch students’ interest, helped to clarify difficult topics, and put knowledge into context so that its relevance was apparent.
On the other hand, sometimes the only thing a student might remember about a course is that there was a teacher in their life who cared about them, who taught them these cool things or these skills that they now use today; they remember the great stories, or jokes, or demonstrations the teacher showed in class, they remember how helpful and approachable a teacher was when they needed help. With either or both situations, I want to be that unforgettable educator that makes a positive difference in a student’s life.