Teaching Philosophy 2023
Here you can find my most recent philosophy of education statement, which is more narrowly focused and concretized than my earlier versions below. It is perhaps a bit longer than others you may read, but it is comprehensive and refers to concrete learning theories, philosophy, and examples from my teaching. You may read it in the interactive PDF viewer below.
Past versions: 2021; 2019
One of the reasons I went into teaching was to encourage a love for learning, and to instill confidence and pride in today's youth. My teen years were the hardest of my life and this experience made me devoted to finding ways to help teenagers through this tumultuous time and to discover their passions, strengths and abilities - thus I became a teacher. Some of the main facets of my teaching philosophy are outlined below.
I believe the role of the teacher should be helping students' find their voice and develop their abilities. This, for me, means that students should be at the center of learning. I believe that students should have as much choice as possible in what they learn and how they learn it. I believe in utilizing frequent pre-assessments to determine student interests and abilities and creating lessons around the students and what they wish to learn rather than around the teacher and what I happen to know. Of course, state curriculum is always an important factor, but in these cases, I believe that allowing students choice over how they want to learn content (via activities, games, etc.) and giving them many different options for evaluations and activities is paramount to keeping students engaged and in developing their love of learning.
One of the things I know from my psychology background is that expectations can influence how youth behave. When teachers have lower expectations of their students, students tend to perform at a lower level. Thus, one of the key elements of my teaching philosophy is to maintain high expectations of students and to believe in them more than their believe in themselves. This is something that many of my students are initially intimidated by, but has the result of getting even the most unmotivated students participating because of my determination that they are capable and gifted, regardless of their particular abilities. Additionally, I have noticed that students tend to sell themselves short and can often struggle with self esteem: the more teachers believe in their students, the more students eventually believe in themselves.
Technology is becoming increasingly vital for participation in society, therefore it has an equally vital role in the classroom. Students will be expected to know how to use technology in ways that will help them in the workforce, therefore utilizing technology in the classroom and giving students opportunities to learn and master technology is key to my teaching philosophy. I try to include some elements of tech in every lesson, going beyond utilizing basic tools like PowerPoint and Google Classroom into teaching challenging students to learn new software that compliments and enhances their learning. For example, I plan on using the videogame development software Twine to teach students creative writing and increase students' technological literacy. Technology can also make learning more fun and novel, and for this reason alone is worth investing class time in.
Teaching philosophy 2019
Creativity
Students will be given numerous opportunities to be creative through assignments, projects, and class discussions aimed at developing their creativity. Assignments will be varied and appeal to multiple ways of learning (visual, auditory, spacial).
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