Teaching Philosophy
After completing my Bachelor of Arts in Education, I believed I had a proficient teaching philosophy. Although many of those ideals still stand, my time throughout the Master of Arts in Education program shifted my ideas about what is important in education. By connecting common themes and implementing new strategies, I have found four new ideals that now make up my current philosophy for Education.
Classroom Community
Building a classroom community is one of the most important things you can do as a teacher at the beginning of the school year. Students must feel they belong and are a part of a school family to be successful in the classroom. Additionally, it is equally important to also build a community that fosters discussion and participation. That fosters acceptance of all answers and questions. That also fosters students to be inquisitive and search for understanding. It is not enough to develop a classroom community and foster student relationships. We must also teach students that all ideas and questions have meaning within the classroom and that their responses will be valued and taken seriously. We must then promote a culture in which students strive to ask questions and participate because they understand how it will affect their understanding. By doing this, students’ engagement and motivation will increase. Student’s ability to use questioning and discussions will also increase.
Questioning
All students come to school with preconceived ideas about the world around them. Whether it be reading, math, science, social studies, the way we work with others, and more. As teachers, we need to build off students’ understandings rather than assert new information. By using questioning, we as teachers can help to build on concepts based on students’ previous knowledge. By using questioning based on what students already know, we also promote a larger purpose for students as they use their understanding of already discovered information to help assimilate new information.
For example, in CGI mathematics teachers use questioning techniques to help teach numeracy to students. By asking questions about counting, operations, and more they can help build on students’ understandings of numbers and counting to continue their numeracy skills. Another example can be found during science instruction as students are using their own questioning of science phenomena to drive the instruction. Students use their own understanding of the phenomenon and their preconceived notions about the underlying science concepts to help build instruction that will enable them to find out more.
Authentic Experiences
In the “real world,” we do not learn or use most skills in isolation. Most tasks are built upon one another to reach larger goals or are needed in everyday tasks. This should be the same method we use to teach content to our students. Students must learn the content while also learning the process of using the content. This means that as teachers, we must help our students through authentic learning tasks such as they would see in the “real world”. As students partake in these authentic learning tasks, we help to teach and develop content along the way. These principles were seen in the instructional practices highlighted in project-based learning, the NGSS science standards, and CGI mathematics.
For example, students would not use the ability to compare and contrast a story for the sake of just doing it. They would be using this skill for some larger goal. They would also most likely be using this skill in conjunction with other reading skills such as identifying the main idea and key details. By teaching these skills in isolation with no larger purpose, we deny students the ability to apply these skills to larger tasks. We deny students the ability to practice using skills together as one would most likely use them outside of the classroom.
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21st-Century Learning
Following the theme of creating authentic experiences, Students not only need to learn academic content, but they must also learn life skills that help within the classroom and within society. We cannot assume students will build skills such as collaboration, creativity, initiative, and many more on their own. We must explicitly teach and design activities that allow students to practice these skills. Additionally, students must also be taught skills such as information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy and again given the ability to practice these skills. Similar to developing authentic experiences for students, 21st-century learning skills emphasize the need to focus on the process of learning, not just the content.
Many of these pillars work together to build one coherent classroom but are necessary to develop individually. Therefore, I separate all four. For example, it is important to use questioning and discussions, but before students can feel comfortable there needs to be a classroom community that fosters open discussions and questions. When designing authentic experiences that focus on the process of learning, questioning and discussions are usually needed to help build and further the experience. Additionally, many authentic experiences in the classroom use 21st-century learning skills. Although these skills are separately listed it is clear to see each one needs to be developed to create a classroom in which students feel safe, motivated, engaged, and are learning not just the what of content, but the how in acquiring it. This is what helps to build the lifelong learners we strive for ourselves and our students to be.
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