When I began my journey as a teaching candidate at the University of Windsor, I started to think about what my teaching philosophy might look like. I soon realized the true challenge in developing a teaching philosophy is to create one which is constantly evolving. Throughout my teaching experience thus far, I have continued to look for more effective ways to improve my teaching practice and grow as an educator. My teaching philosophy focuses on providing authentic and real world learning experiences, which make learning meaningful and relevant to students. By doing so, it is my goal to set students up for success and for students to develop skills they can take forward with them into an unpredictable future. Here, I will describe this philosophy that works for me as a teacher, and is unique to my experiences.
Establishing a strong rapport with my students and promoting a positive learning environment important to my teaching philosophy. I value my ability to connect with each student and learn about their interests. Applying these interests to the learning program makes the experience more relevant and meaningful. As well, developing a strong rapport with each of my students allows me to be an effective educator who looks at social and contextual circumstances, and acts accordingly. I deeply value and respect each individual student’s unique history, and strive to teach in a way which emphasizes individual’s strengths, while fully supporting them when they require extra guidance. It is always my goal to create a supportive learning environment where students feel safe to explore their own ideas as well as exchange interpretations or understandings with their peers.
In this environment, I make great effort to foster mutual respect and encourage not only student to teacher, but also student to student dialogue and learning. It is my opinion that student engagement is central to a successful lesson. When teaching, I maintain student engagement by guiding students to understand how learning experiences are applicable to their own lives. It is essential for students to learn a particular skill-set in an environment which closely resembles real world scenarios. Moreover, to ensure students feel secure and confident to explore in their learning environment, I create learning goals and success criteria which are both challenging and attainable for students. This ensures lessons are not too easy resulting in disengagement, but rather provide students with challenges aligned with their developmental level. By creating lessons which integrate student interests, learning becomes relevant and knowledge can be easily recalled. I firmly believe in the importance of filtering curriculum through my own competencies to meet the individual needs and interests of my students.
Early on in my teaching experience, I recognized the importance of effective classroom management strategies, as well as the benefits of routine. I believe it is important to guide students in identifying and developing self-regulation strategies which work best for them. When students are able to independently self-regulate and follow routine, more time can be devoted to learning rather than classroom management. As well, I believe that developing self-regulation skills will be an essential skill for my students in their futures. Moreover, my own mistakes have taught me the importance of always making expectations and parameters clear before all learning activities. During my practice teaching experiences, I found it highly effective to develop success criteria alongside students. In doing so, student interests are valued, autonomy is increased, and students set goals to learn at an appropriate pace.
Educators today face a unique challenge in equipping students with the challenges of the twenty-first century. I believe using a project-based learning approach is an effective way of guiding students to acquire twenty-first century skills. Project based learning fosters collaboration, creativity, critical thinking skills, and problem solving skills. Implementing this approach also allows students to inquire about their interests so they are able to better recall and draw connections from the information and skills learned. I believe in providing students with experiences characterized by real authentic problems, allowing them to apply and develop skill sets they may take forward with them in their futures. Further, it is my goal to help students to realize the importance of global citizenship and their roles as productive members in their communities, by facilitating both experiential and engaging lessons.
I strive to support students in developing a growth mindset, encouraging them to view learning as an ongoing life process we must value. When teaching is done in this way, my students will feel prepared to utilize their knowledge and skills to manage problems or challenges they might face as they move forward in the world. Throughout my teaching experiences I constantly reflect on lessons, especially when they may fail. I view assessment and evaluation as a reflection of not only my students success, but also my own. I use these reflective experiences to be flexible in my teaching approaches, and to always improve. I value the learning of students I work with, but I also value my own ability to learn and grow in experience, skills, and judgement, through everyday self-reflection.