Teaching Philosophy

In service of this pursuit, I’ve most recently dedicated myself to finishing a Master of Education program at UCSD. My perspective, depth of knowledge, and motivation has been broadened by my recent experiences. It’s as if my intentions that I knew intuitively have been given definitions, theories, tools, and strategies. The most profound course that had a lasting impact on me was a Bilingual Education with a Global Perspective course. It has radically changed my perspective on the ramifications of what a school’s language ideology and language choice to teach through can have on students and groups of people. I now deeply understand the importance of celebrating and supporting the many languages my students know in my classroom, in addition to their unique backgrounds they bring into our classroom. I want to be a teacher who respects and cultivates bilingualism and the identities of my students in my classroom. Although I am not bilingual myself, I know there are many ways I can support my bilingual students by encouraging them to speak their language, by supporting translanguaging, and by providing opportunities for them to use their languages. Moreover, in all classes I took, they taught me how important it is to have a funds of knowledge perspective when viewing my students and their families and not a deficit view of students who don’t fit into the molds of the traditional school structure designed to a certain demographic of students. By having a funds of knowledge framework to operate from, and by providing Universal Design for Learning in every lesson so it’s accessible to all students, every student brings something crucial to the table.

The magical tool of connection

I believe the most important element of the student-teacher relationship is a trusting genuine connection to one another based in mutual respect and student-autonomy.. In the words of Deonna Smith in her great book “Rooted in Joy'' she says “...all students need a connection to their teacher.” I could not agree more. If a teacher is able to have a connection to some degree to every student, it helps with every aspect of teaching. From motivation, to classroom management, to engagement, to learning success. There are endless gimmicks for classroom management, but nothing beats a genuine caring relationship with a student because if they trust you and feel like you genuinely care for them, they will open up to you and receive your demands from them more openly. Even the students that need more constant and firm redirection can be connected to through a number of strategies such as the 2x10 model. The 2x10 model is for 10 days straight, you have a 2 minute conversation with a student you are trying to build a relationship with about a preferred topic that they are interested in. I’ve found that by showing interest in my students' lives outside of the academic setting, even the seemingly disconnected students find connection. 

The practice

There are endless things to consider as a teacher when striving for the success of your student. These are 5 main concepts I consider outside of creating a class that feels connected and a sense of belonging. They are constant reflection into your practice, assessment-driven lesson planning and backwards planning, low floor high ceiling lessons, strategic flexible grouping that can incorporate targeted intensive instruction, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Foremost is the need for constant and intentional reflection into my teaching practice. There is always room for growth and that can only be done by taking inventory on your own teaching practice. Secondly, assessment-driven lesson planning ensures that you are considering what your students already know and where they need to grow before designing a lesson. This way, lessons are tailored to all students' learning needs. Backwards planning centers the content-specific learning goals based on the standards that the school grounds itself on before creating the tasks and content that you will ask your students to engage in. This way, the learning goals and the tasks you ask of your students are always in service of helping them grow towards the actual learning goals. Next, low floor high ceiling lessons aim to move beyond differentiation and provide a lesson that is accessible for a range of learners while also providing students the autonomy to self-select what challenge they are ready for in a lesson. It essentially provides them multiple access points into the content and within the content, movement to try and challenge or grow towards one built into the lessons. Second to last is strategic grouping which would be based on informal or formal assessment data from your students. Take math for example, in the past I have split my students into 3 flexible groups based on the previous math lesson and offered the students who were ready for independent work the chance to immediately get started, the ones still needing some support a bit of instructional time through modeling and then releasing them for independent work, and then the students that still needed more scaffolding a smaller group lesson with more intensive and targeted support. Lastly, I ensure that UDLs are present and integrated into every single lesson. I simply believe that it’s best practice and it ensures that you are making your lessons as student-oriented and accessible as possible. For example, I predominantly taught multilingual learners at my student teaching placement so I would always have instructions and group discussions given orally and written with Spanish translations to help with understanding the content. With all of that being said, nothing can beat a student’s sense of feeling authentic belonging in a classroom. That is always paramount.