Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy consists of a few well recognized ideologies that we believe create a safe classroom environment, teach students to learn science by practicing science, encourage students to grow to the best of their abilities, foster students to learn and practice social skills as well as content knowledge, and instill growth mindsets into students.

The first is Humanism. This is where an educator visualizes learning from the perspective of the human potential for growth. In short, becoming the best one can be. This philosophy is important because school is not only a place to learn content, but to learn how to be a better person along the way.

Constructivism is another very important philosophy to include in a science classroom. This is the practice of having learners actively create their own understandings of reality through acting upon and reflecting on experiences in the world. The more common phrase is “learn science by doing science”. This practice is imperative in order to learn science most effectively for students.

Another extremely important philosophy is the premise of growth and fixed mindsets. This is a relatively new psychological phenomena that was first brought into the spotlight by psychologist Carol Dweck (Check out her TedTalk below). It is the study of how people think differently in regards to failure. On one hand people can fail, learn from it, and try again, or they can fail, be overcome by not meeting expectations, and most likely quit. In this scenario, the person that learns from failure is exhibiting a growth mindset while the other that feels they didn’t meet expectations and quits exhibits a fixed mindset.