My Teaching Philosophy

I received my first teaching credential back in 1983. At the time, I planned to be a high school French teacher and was annoyed to learn that "How to Teach Reading" was a required course in my credential studies. Ten years later, teaching elementary school, I wished that I had paid more attention in that course. It was a sobering lesson for me.

Being closed-minded has no place in an instructor's practice. As I sought to match my teaching to the needs of my young pupils, I also learned that there is no single "right way" to do this. Everyone has an individual style with personal needs; the best that I could do would be to always plan my instruction in a multi-modal way, in order to reach as many students as possible. To that end, I've make my lesson explanations as complete as possible; it's vital to show what the final product should look like as well as develop user-friendly instructions to guide students using the recommended methods or applications.

Technology has added additional layers of complexity and possibilities to education. While I find online possibilities to be infinitely creative, I run the risk of losing that personal connection which has been of great use in linking student engagement to my instruction. This program has helped me consider ways to expand my online offerings beyond the "dreaded" (at least in some of my students' mind) Moodle. Collaborating with colleagues that I have never met has opened new horizons for me.

I drew this pointillism sunflower my senior year of high school. I was dismayed to receive a "C-" on work that had taken me hours to do. My teacher interpreted the blank middle ring as laziness and the assignment was thus deemed to be incomplete. My explanation, that I had left it blank for effect in order to highlight the pointillism, fell on deaf ears.

This picture now hangs in my classroom as a reminder that, as an educator, it is very important for me to listen to my students' voices and to try and see things from their point of view. After all, they are not the only ones who can learn something.

And that is, literally, my teaching philosophy in a nutshell.

UPDATE- My letter to the editor in ACSD's EL magazine referenced this experience.