My philosophy towards teaching is one that I plan to infiltrate into every aspect of my classroom to ensure that my students are well aware of my vision for their learning and the expectations for their success. It is my desire to foster a personal connection with each and every student, to diversify my teaching style to maximum student engagement, and implement student-centered learning in my instruction.
I feel that a key to successful education is a personal connection to your students. This allows you to determine what style of teaching will be most effective in reaching them. No Child Left Behind has a significant impact on this issue. An article published by Douglas Reeves entitled “Preventing 1,000 Failures” discusses how one school took the initiative to stop the downward spiral occurring in their school. One of the key components to their plan was personal connections with the struggling students to let them know that the school cared and was genuinely concerned with their success. Unfortunately, I feel that sometimes we, as teachers, forsake the student to get the grades. This is in no way a negative reflection on the teacher, but a reality based on the pressures we face to maintain these academic standards. In this push to meet standards of excellence, I worry that we begin to see the student as a number or score and not as a person. Hunter Brimi published a 2009 Clearing House article entitled “Academic Instructors or Moral Guides? Moral Education in America and the Teacher’s Dilemma” that spoke volumes of this issue. Brimi discusses that educators have lost that personal connection with the student that allows us to have an impact on them morally in addition to academically. Moral education was a key component to traditional education in its early stages, but it is now being covered up by legalities and standards. However, I feel that a genuine interest in the student and who they are will allow you to maximize your effectiveness in the classroom. With this genuine interest should come the desire to engage the student in the learning process and with this will usually come a diversifying of your teaching style as well.
An open-mindedness to adjust my teaching style is something that I have gleaned from my studies and observations this semester. In one particular day of observations, I witnessed my teacher adjust her teaching style on the spot in an effort to maximize the impact of the lesson on her students. Her initial lesson was predominantly lecture-based, but when she saw the lack of intrigue from her first period class, she immediately made the determination to change. By the next class, she has completely restructured the lesson to be student-based, and, as a result, the students were more active and involved in their learning. I was so inspired by my teacher’s genuine desire to activate and engage her students. This experience will serve as a reminder for me as I enter into teaching that the ultimate goal is always to maximize the students’ learning. It would be selfish of me to assume that it is the student’s fault for not understanding the information I am giving them when only presented it in one way. By using 4MAT as a guideline for my units and lesson plans, I am confident that I will always be cognizant of the different learning styles of my students and consistently attempting to ensure that all types are reached through the instruction I provide. One excellent way to reach different learning styles would be through the use of student-centered learning.
So often, students in high school are so concerned about being better than their peers that they lose sight of the goal or intent of the pursuit. In my classroom, I will implement cooperative learning as a means of diffusing that competitiveness and embracing unity and team work among fellow students. The reasoning behind my desire for student-centered learning is that I believe strongly in the research available today in support of this style of teaching and implementation. I feel that group learning taps in to the crevices in the brain that, for some students, the teacher can never reach. Students today need to experience for themselves in order to fully learn and grow as individuals. As an educator, I feel compelled to provide every opportunity for each learner to tap into those crevices and uncover the study of English in a new way.
No comments:
Post a Comment