Teaching Philosophy

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Through literature and writing courses, students are placed in an environment that presents them with ideas that have developed from history that will continue to be reflected within society. The field of English involves more than reading, for students are challenged to understand, articulate, and assimilate these ideas into their comprehension of their lives. As a teacher, I am a mediator of the information presented, and I am a proponent for creating some ‘discomfort’ as students are taught to challenge and consider their perceptions that shape their worldview—education should create opportunities to think beyond the self. In relation to the students, I am fundamentally responsible for creating an active learning environment that encourages participation and engagement with these issues while working to acknowledge them as individuals. I believe that these aspects are integral to a productive classroom experience.
In the encouragement of active learning, I advocate utilizing multiple methods and daily activities that stimulate student interaction and discussion. Understanding that lecturing is sometimes essential to the course, it remains necessary to integrate reflective questions that concern the presented material to be discussed and shared among classmates at the end of the class. This allows for cognitive reiteration and information assimilation. The majority of my classroom time will be focused on individual and group activities. I advocate metacognitive, reflective writings that encourage the student to freely think about the subject and make internal, subjective connections with the material. By allowing students to individually consider the information before joining in groups and sharing their ideas, students are encouraged to be personally invested with the information before collaboration. Moreover, this allows the teacher to frequently assess the development and cognition of the students. Group discussions need to be facilitated by the instructor, and they are used to create a discourse over the material that engages the students with it and with each other. This interaction draws on some ideas of Social-Construction Theory, for I believe that verbal articulation and peer interaction engender thinking at a critical and thorough level.
I uphold that it is essential for a teacher to present information that goes beyond the normative and dominant worldview. My texts and curriculum will include material that is not formally canonical so that it considers information that is not conventionally encountered in classroom settings. In providing access to ethnic literature, marginalized stories, or simply ignored perspectives, I hope for students to move beyond their assumptions about other people and history. Not only will this cultivate diversity, but it encourages a broader mindset that values information multiple perspectives that have been historically estranged from academia.
Cultural diversity and group culture need to be considered beyond the curriculum and within the classroom. Employing some characteristics of ethnology on a classroom level allows for an understanding of the learning style of the students that can therefore shape teaching strategies and designs for effective instruction. This can be done by developing relationships with students and daily interaction, but I also believe in taking the first day for students to introduce themselves and their interests to the teacher and their peers. Knowing the student at an individual level develops a framework for the classroom activities, and it enables the teacher to establish a respect and understanding of the student’s perspectives and preferences.
As my own work within the discipline is maturing, I will daily encounter new struggles and new opportunities to present information effectively to students. However, ultimately, my desire it to generate a curiosity about their life experience and a desire to consider the materials they work with critically.

Multiculturalism Video Presentation

-This video discusses the importance of including multicultural literature within the classroom, and it illustrates why I believe ethnic literature and the stories of marginalized peoples should be more integral to classroom curriculum. As a teacher, it is difficult and intimidating to include information that is foreign to your own experience and domain of knowledge. However, the purpose of education is to teach students about the world, and not simply the predominate, normative understanding of it.

TECHNIQUES CENTER, STUDENT DISABILITY SERVICES, TUTORING EXPERIENCE

As a tutor for students with disabilities for two years, I gained experience working with the same students daily for a semester. I worked one-on-one with these students, and I was challenged daily to work with their various, individual learning styles and disabilities that varied for each class. This experience greatly effected my teaching philosophy, and I now feel like it is imperative to understand the personal needs and attitudes of students within the classroom in order to fully engage them and encourage learning. This link includes a variety of information taken from the Techniques Center that illustrates how these ideas were integral to the system, and how I employed them. The first Student Interview document is given to the students the first day of tutoring so that I have a greater understanding of their needs from their own perspective. I used this frequently in the following sessions to understand how I could tailor our activities towards their preferences and difficulties. The next document discusses the meaning of the SOAP [notes] that are a primary function of the tutoring system. Tutors are required to fill out SOAP notes after every tutoring session, and this enables the tutor to keep track of the student's progress. It challenges the tutor to acknowledge the methods that work best, or that fail, when interacting with the student. It emphasizes the importance of continually assessing the environment and productivity of the sessions. The next two documents are samples of my SOAP notes that I filled out on two of my previous students. The following documents are assessments of me as a tutor, filled out by both students and counselors. As can be seen, my weaknesses in particular are vital to my teaching philosophy. Through my struggles with learning strategies and engaging students, I have realized how important it is to move beyond lecturing into student interaction and classroom exercises that are responsive to the student's questions, reflections, and weaknesses.
http://portal.texastech.edu

SAMPLE CLASSROOM PRESENTATION

My preference for classroom design and style is illustrated within this document. I composed the class structure around my preference for previous, individual reflection before classroom discussion. I drew from outside sources to broaden the focus beyond the book and included some background information, but the focus of this class was on the student interaction and the move from written discourse through the blogged reflections to verbal discourse and class interaction.

http://1301group.blogspot.com/2008/11/chicana-literature-classroom.html

Oh the Teaching Philosophy...

I think it makes sense that a teaching philosophy would always have to be in flux, would always have to be reflexive to the changing environment, would always have to be progressing. It seems like a teaching philosophy grows and changes as you as a person, as a teacher, grows and changes. My personal teaching philosophy has never really been stable. It tends to shift with my various passions at the time. I remember last year I was really in to enabling students to fully express themselves. Now, my teaching philosophy is being effected by my experiences on Raider Writer and with 1301. I think that students need instruction, and that they need to be treated like adults who can articulate their ideas and who should be expected to put in their best effort. My ideas are slightly effected by psychology, and the research in the field that shows that teacher expectations are a good predictor of the student's output. If we expect our students to do shallow analysis and shoddy work, perhaps the students think that is ok. If we expect higher standards, and if we relay and enforce those expectations within the classroom setting and within our grading, perhaps the students would recognize the different expectations and therefore respond differently. Also, my teaching philosophy is being influenced by my own classes. I have always been involved with ethnic literature, and the ideas that are focused on in these classes influence how I want to teach. I do not want to teach to the canon, to the traditional. I want to challenge students to challenge their pre-conceptions, and the ideas of unified opinions. I want students to see the different ideas that comprise our society and make it so variegated. Especially in Texas, I want students to recognize that they, too, live on borders. In my teaching method and my materials, I hope to challenge students to move outside of their comfort zone, and to do it well.