Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy

Vision of the Teacher and Learner

I envision my role as a facilitator; my students and I are equal partners in a learning journey. My intent is to share some of my expert knowledge in order to assist adult learners to reach their fullest potential. I provide a fair amount of rigor in my classes and have high aspirations for student achievement, yet my expectations are clearly delineated and students receive a gentle hand guiding them to success.

My teaching style considers Knowles’ principles of andragogy and includes involving adult learners in planning and evaluation of instruction, viewing their previous personal and professional expertise as a strength to be drawn upon, ensuring the relevancy of subject matter is apparent, and utilization of problem-centered learning when appropriate. My objectives as an educator are to: (a) facilitate the acquisition of lifelong learning skills by teaching students how to learn; (b) develop a student’s resourcefulness; and (c) inspire students to become passionate about learning.

Teaching Methods

I achieve my objectives as an educator through multi-faceted teaching methods to accommodate different learning styles. I extensively use the art of questioning in my teaching in order to develop student ability for critical thinking. I create learning activities that develop their information fluency by encouraging critical exploration of concepts and greater depth of analysis of readings, including critiquing articles in order to encourage challenging assumptions. In courses where there is a written assignment, I provide writing workshops and extensive formative feedback to further develop student’s writing abilities. By introducing students to a multitude of resources I aim to direct them to the most current evidence as a basis for practice. In effect, by modeling a way of thinking, I am attempting to teach them how to think like a nurse rather than how to be a nurse.

I rely on active-learning to ensure students are engaged and inspired to learn. I use a flipped classroom approach, having students complete weekly readings before coming to class so that we can spend class time engaged in discussion, team-based learning activities, experiential learning, and problem-centered learning. In clinical practice I employ an emergent learning approach. As experiences arise I take the opportunity to delve into new material while it is relevant and can be applied in context. I am also a proponent of the teach-back method where students further consolidate their knowledge by sharing their learning with peers. With the reliance on technology today, it is essential to incorporate emerging trends in order to capture and maintain student attention. Employing a variety of teaching methods within the active-learning framework keeps the pace dynamic and increases the level of student-teacher interaction.

Teacher/Learner Relationship

My strongest value as a teacher lies in my relationships with students. It is of ultimate importance to me that I learn all my student’s names and get to know many of them beyond the surface. I try to model respectful communication and empathy with my students. I ensure I appear authentic and approachable by allowing for a certain amount of personal disclosure, whilst maintaining professionalism. I share personal stories and clinical practice examples with students so that they can learn from my experience and see the real world application of concepts in practice. I aim to model behaviors that I expect from them as professionals. I understand that there is an inherent power imbalance between teachers and students, which cannot be entirely eradicated due to the need for evaluation in traditional educational structures. However, I seek to mitigate these power imbalances where possible in order to attain a power-with dynamic. In my mind there is no higher honor as a teacher than to have a student acknowledge that the teacher / learner relationship has been a positive and memorable experience.