My Philosophy of Teaching

As a teacher, I hope to introduce the tools needed to enable my students to become self learners. By employing skill and will, learning strategies, and high levels of motivation I would like to create learners that are able to learn in spite of themselves, a bad teacher, or their ability. Students should become life-long learners where learning becomes second nature. Once they understand how and what to learn they will do it without even thinking about it. This may in turn increase their motivation, which makes learning easy and fun.

In order to promote learning a teacher needs tools, much like a carpenter needs tools. The carpenter needs his or her hammer, nails, and wood. The teacher needs his or her own learning strategies toolbox. Concepts such as verbal mediation, elaborative rehearsal, and mnemonics provide ways for students to arrange knowledge in their schema so they are easier to retrieve. To make use of existing knowledge, students need to retrieve that knowledge from working memory, but they often need help with this process. They may not realize that they have relevant existing knowledge; they may not select the most useful knowledge to activate; or the necessary existing knowledge may be missing, incomplete, or flawed. Consequently, you need teaching techniques to address these different issues. The teacher should also make things personally relevant, making the learning more meaningful for them. An excellent teacher always “speaks in the known”.

Teachers who praise for effort and improvement create successes in their classroom every day. By simply creating the illusion of success, students gain confidence they need to become better learners. The child should look at his A+ paper and think, “I did well because I worked hard.”

I cannot wait to teach. It is something that I have always enjoyed doing. By shaping the leaders of tomorrow, I can feel better about living in today.