Teaching Philosophy 

For me, teaching has always been something that I have been extremely passionate about. From a very young age, I can remember going to school with my mom and getting to watch her teach a huge classroom full of students. I always thought it was insanely cool and also had a lot of really good teachers in my own schooling growing up. These things, along with a combination of loving to learn have inspired me to also want to teach. When I think about my young self, I think about someone who was very passionate about school, learning, and doing well. But I also think about someone who was impacted so positively by teachers who were not only great educators but great human beings who taught me how to be better.

My central goals as a teacher are to have impact. Not just on their day-to-day experiences, but in their learning and in their future. I want my students to feel like they are in a space that is safe, welcoming and inclusive to their needs and safety. I have experienced a few classrooms growing up, where there was a lot of judgment and issues being based on student to student where we were unable to share ideas and feel excited about our ideas because of the fear of judgement or embarrassment from others. This creates a classroom environment where the students struggle to continue to develop based on the environment they are in rather than the actual topics they are looking to connect with and learn from. One of my largest goals, and things I have learned from this master's program is the ability to connect with students and their needs. I have learned the importance of classroom management and the impact the environment can have on the students. This becomes my biggest goal for teaching because I truly want my classroom to be an environment where students feel freedom to make mistakes and learn and grow from them without any fears of judgement. I think these goals come from my own personal experiences, but also just from being in mentor classrooms and learning from teachers who have a ton of experiences. I think a lot of my goals and understanding of the things that need to be included in the classroom are things that come from teachers who have been willing and able to share how they create these safe spaces from students. I also think these goals stem from the research done throughout the program here at Michigan State University and how we are able to learn based off research and in person experiences.

The methods of practice that I employ with my students in order to create a space where they can achieve all of their goals are to spend the first parts of the school year practicing classroom management with the students. Really taking a deep dive into what things are acceptable or unacceptable in the classroom. This allows for a lot of time and preparation into the behaviors and responses that are reasonable for our space. By doing this, we are able to create a safe space for students before even diving into any content for the students. This is also something that can impact the students in their futures by allowing us to help them establish their behaviors that are important for real life and getting older and the socially acceptable behaviors. 

The assignments I plan to include in these processes are assignments that are more open ended in the sense that the students are able to create their own thinking and ideas and also share that with their peers. This is also a way that by creating open ended assignments for each student to consider their thinking, and share with others, we are able to create a welcome environment for each of them to feel comfortable and confident with their thinking and ideas. I will then be able to assess my success in achieving these goals by seeing how comfortable the students are with sharing their work with others and also asking them if they feel that sense of comfortableness. But I would say overall the most important thing is to just assess the classroom based on the students' actions and peer interaction.

 Teaching is important to me because there are so many young people out there who deserve to have a really positive connotation surrounding school and their learning. I also just think based on what I have also explained is that I was really positively impacted by a lot of my teachers growing up in school and that is something I want to be apart of an continue for the future generations. For me, based off my own learning My teaching philosophy is that leaving an impact on students, where they learn as much as possible in their time together, but also teaching them the life skills that they need to be better people, while also hopefully getting them to walk away feeling empower and inspired about all that they can accomplish, is so beyond important. 

Below is an image of my classroom management thoughts and development of classroom management along with a photo of me speaking to a group of students.