Throughout my educational experiences, I have seen a wide variety of teaching philosophies used, and I am happy to share my own teaching philosophy. My teaching philosophy accurately correlates with who I am as an individual. I can not wait to share my love of teaching with my students just like my teachers shared with me. My views on teaching are a balance between Progressivism and Social Reconstructionism. I believe that learning should be problem based, and students should relate problems back to real world situations. In the classroom, children should be able to be creative and curious through their educational experiences. I believe in the importance of problem solving and curiosity students gain through education. As a teacher, I want to guide my students to explore, and I want them to be able to play a main role in their own learning. I want my students to leave my classroom with the confidence and knowledge that it is okay to not know something right away. I want my students to learn the importance of making mistakes and learning from them.
My teaching style is very student-centered. Teaching is about the knowledge that the students gain from being in the classroom. I believe my teaching style is directly related to my personality. I want everyone of my students to have a voice in their learning, and I want them all to take risks with their learning and know that it is okay to make mistakes. I want my students to feel safe and respected in my classroom. My classroom will be a place where everyone shows kindness and respect towards each other. My classroom will be an understanding, and loving community. I will praise my students for their hard work and determination instead of for getting something right. We will be in a classroom that communicates with each other, and I will be a teacher that listens to the needs of my students. Kindness and problem solving will be the most important qualities that my classroom will have. The culture of my classroom will be built off of the qualities of kindness, respect, and honesty. My teaching will create an environment in which students are excited to learn and participate in classroom learning activities. My bubbly personality will create a comfortable learning environment for many different students from many different backgrounds. I will make sure my students know that everyone is different, and that it is okay to be different from peers. I will introduce my students to different cultures and languages lightly, so they will be more open to the idea of learning about other people. I personally believe it is important to apply different languages into elementary school learning environments. In my classroom, I personally want to apply sign language into my teaching. It was a language I learned very simple signs at a very young age in which I used to communicate what I wanted to without saying a word. It is very easy to learn, and it can impact the classroom in a positive way. It can indicate the need to use the bathroom, success, and other needs without interrupting the entire class. I want my classroom to be full of culturally aware students.
I will use a plethora of methods and strategies to teach my students. I feel it is super important to have individual time with each student, group work between students, large group discussions, and individual work time for the students. I will use different methods to learn depending on the activity. When teaching important units, I will always introduce the lesson with large group discussions and activities. For more individualized work such as students doing a project or small writing assignments, individual work time is best. I will let my students guide their own learning as well as me guiding them through their learning process. I will help them through problems that may occur, but I will leave room for their own ideas and problem solving to flourish. I want to see my students grow in their learning individually, and I want to guide them using a growth mindset. I never want to tell my student a direct answer, but I want to guide them through the process to come up with the correct answer themselves.
I want my students to gain a growth mindset in my classroom. I will always care about the growth of my students rather than their grade or success rate. I want all of my students to get the most out of their learning. I want my students in my classroom to say, “I like to try new things” and “challenges help me grow” rather than “I stick to what I know” and “I don’t like to be challenged”. My classroom will know that failure is the key to success. Challenges are what will help my students grow and become successful in the future. I will teach my students that they are learning through their mistakes. I believe that this will keep my students motivated and engaged in my classroom. My students will want to take risks and help each other through their learning challenges. This will create an overall management of the classroom. My classroom management plan will be based on the idea that I want my students to feel like they are a family. If everyone in my classroom respects everyone as they are, the management will fall into place on how I want my classroom to flow. I want my classroom to have fluidity and be open to change within learning. I will make sure all of my students are happy, safe, and healthy to ensure I am doing everything in my ability to create a well managed classroom.
My goals are to make sure my students are getting the most out of my teaching and their learning. I personally want to grow my classroom and teaching more and more everyday, and I will evaluate myself and reflect back on the day and how it went to see how I can improve the next day. I will also apply this strategy to my students as well. I can ask them everyday before dismissal to rate themselves using their fingers 1-5 how they feel the school day went. It gives the students the opportunity to express themselves. It will also give me a rough idea of how I performed as a teacher for the day as well. This strategy will help both my students and my teaching.
I am a very optimistic educator that wants the students to gain knowledge to succeed in every step of their life. The way a student learns is based on the teaching style of the teacher. It is important to adjust your teaching to your students as well to ensure that every student is getting the most out of their education. These ideas will impact my teaching everyday because I will always want to improve my teaching techniques to be the most efficient and effective teacher. I can not wait to share my insights on the world with younger generations to help them grow and experience the good in life and what this amazing world has to offer through kindness.
Thanks for sharing your vision, Madison. I appreciate the focus on both individual students and on the community in the classroom. This balance with be a constant dance, an ebb and flow to find the right balance everyday. You can use this framework to guide you as you continue to grow as an educator. There is much to do and we need people like you.
Peace,
Dr. R