Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Philosophy

Philosophy of Teaching Statement
Teaching is a transitive verb with multiple participants, where participation is necessary in all objects for the action to be complete. Who is doing the teaching, what is being taught, and who is being taught are intricately woven integral  elements.  The harmony of these factors is what I will thrive for as an inspirational teacher of English in a nourishing classroom environment.

First and foremost, I believe that for knowledge to be taught by an individual who is knowledgeable then the structure of lesson must compliment the aims and enthusiasms of the learners. Each group of learners are unique from one another, regardless of maturity or motivation, if such variables are the same among two groups, then the groups are still distinctive from themselves. Furthermore, individual learners within their communal enclaves are idiosyncratic. What every learner brings with them is their own unique observation and understanding to the class, and this differs from learner to learner, classroom, or school district. Because of these distinctions, I believe that a classroom lesson plan should then reflect the students’ own knowledge and experience and what they want to achieve. By knowing my students and them knowing me, we will reach a synergy where our mutual learning goals will be reachable.
I know that it was William Arthur Ward, American educator, writer, and laureate, who said “The mediocre teacher tells. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires,” and those words are what I think it means to be a professional teacher. What is being taught and the success of learner acquisition is dependent on credibility and expertise of the individual who is teaching. As a teacher, inspirational leader, and motivational speaker, because a individual must be all three occupations to be a great teacher, I will constantly improve and update both my credibility and expertise in my profession of study. I will never stop learning because education is the pursuit of knowledge not its acquisition. As my students will learn from me, I will learn from my students. This is the main reason for my ambitions as a teacher, it is why I chose education as a profession. I love learning, it’s the best part of me as an individual. I want to instill that same passion into the persons that I will teach, despite my field of emphasis as an English teacher. All teachers should inspire learning, not just promote it.
In regards to my field, I will inspire students with my knowledge of English to teach them life-long skills in written composition as well as a respect and affinity for Literature (classic, modern, American, British, etcetera). This will give them a sampling of all aspects of our didactic language, if not inspiring them to further pursue English in their education, if only to give them a broader and more in depthful understanding of English as a pivotal subject in the makeup of our community.

These are not only my aims or philosophies as a professional teacher of English, these are my mantras, my doctrines, my text. A text can rally whole peoples around a belief, I hope that my text rallies you to believe in me.
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Monday, February 3, 2014

I Guess I Shouldn't be so Critical

Sorry, if I'm a little irritable recently. I guess I expect too much from other people. I know I don't look the part, but I try to be professional in all aspects of my life. If something is outside my area of knowledge, I don't dare approach it as if I know everything about it. I like to believe that my expertise resides in my interests. If I know something, then I will try my best to enlighten you if I can. Then let you go on thinking what you well if that's what you wish, because teaching is not simply telling. Teaching is a transitive verb with two participants, meaning participation is required for the action to be successful. Am I growing bitter with age? I don't think so. I just don't understand how my generation can still squeak by with doing the bare minimum in everything. Do I expect too much of others? I expect the same in others with what is expected of me. Here's an example of what is expected of me at the moment:  (I guess I'm learning how to become a teacher.)

Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement

Prepared by Lee Haugen
Center for Teaching Excellence, Iowa State University
March, 1998
Your philosophy of teaching statement should reflect your personal values and the needs of your students and your department. At the least, you will want to address four primary questions, usually in this order.

New for 2013

In this video, Susan Yager shares her experience in developing her own teaching philosophy statement as well as tips for the beginner writing for the first time.

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1. To What End?

It is important to start by describing where you want to end. In other words, what are your objectives as a teacher? The rest of your philosophy statement should support these objectives which should be achievable and relevant to your teaching responsibilities; avoid vague or overly grandiose statements. On the other hand, you will want to demonstrate that you strive for more than mediocrity or only nuts-and-bolts transference of facts.
You would certainly want your students to learn the fundamental content of the courses you teach. But beyond that, do you hope to foster critical thinking, facilitate the acquisition of life-long learning skills, prepare students to function effectively in an information economy, or develop problem-solving strategies? What is your role in orienting students to a discipline, to what it means to be an educated person in your field? How do you delineate your areas of responsibility as compared to your students' responsibilities? In what specific ways do you want to improve the education of students in your field? Are there discussions in academic journals or in professional organizations about shortcomings in the education of students today or unmet needs in the discipline and do you have ideas about how to address those shortcomings and needs? If you are going to use teaching in P & T bids, you will probably need to connect to national issues or objectives.
These are questions that will require some thought and you will probably benefit from discussing them with other faculty in your department. Some people can sit down and bang out a paragraph or two in a short time but most of us become more thoughtful about the "big" questions when we bounce them off of our colleagues, consider their responses, re-evaluate our positions, revise, talk some more, etc. Your statement of objectives as a teacher is the most important part of your teaching philosophy and you should take some time with it. And if you take it seriously, you will probably come back to this statement to revise or add to it. Think of it as a work in progress.

2. By What Means?

When you have a clear idea about your teaching objectives, you can discuss methods that you use to achieve or work toward those objectives. Here is where you can display your knowledge of learning theory, cognitive development, curriculum design, etc. You will want to explain specific strategies, techniques, exercises, and include both what you have used in the past and are planning for future courses. You will want to tie these directly to your teaching objectives and discuss how each approach is designed for that purpose.
Discuss how you make decisions about content, resources, and methods. If you include a field trip, what are your learning objectives? If you assemble a collection of readings, how did you decide what to include? How do you decide whether to use collaborative or individual projects? Do you use active learning or student-centered learning principles and why? Relate these decisions and methods to the kinds of classes you teach (large lecture, small discussion, lab, etc.) and make connections to your course objectives.
Again, relate your methods to national-level needs for teaching in your discipline whenever possible. If you have developed instructional materials that have been or could be disseminated, be sure to discuss them. If you have designed or are planning innovative activities, describe how they address specific teaching objectives. Have you presented a paper or a workshop at a professional conference related to your teaching methods?

3. To What Degree?

You will need to discuss how you intend to measure your effectiveness vis a vis the objectives and methods you have outlined. Because your objectives are most likely related to student learning, then you will probably use measures of student outcomes to reflect your efforts rather than how many chapters you can cover from the textbook. Student evaluations are always a touchy subject among teachers but in large part that is because teachers have not devised their own assessment methods. Most of us are obligated to use standardized evaluation forms. But that does not prevent us from developing other means that are more directly related to our specific goals and objectives. Teachers who develop their own evaluations usually get more relevant feedback. But in addition, they usually get more positive feedback as well because they are asking the students to reflect on the most important aspects of the course.
If one of your objectives is to develop problem-solving skills, then you will probably want to test your students' ability to solve problems. In that case, discuss how you construct problems for them to solve, what skills those problems are meant to evaluate, and the level of performance that you are seeking. As Ronald Myers, Associate Professor in Veterinary Pathology pointed out in his teaching portfolio: I have come to realize that ultimately students learn what we examine for. If we test for learning of facts, students will learn facts. If we test for problem solving, they will learn to be better problem solvers....My long-term goal is to learn more about and then to implement improved mechanisms for assessment of students, likely in the realm of ability-based or performance-based assessment. There are many resources for improving assessment and student evaluations in the [CELT] library.

4. Why?

Here is where you can be, if not grandiose, at least a bit grand. What, to you, are the great and wonderful rewards of teaching? Why is teaching important? How do you want to make the world or at least higher education better? When you are overworked and feel undervalued, to what ideals do you return in order to rejuvenate yourself and inspire your students? How do you want to make a difference in the lives of your students?
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