My VitaMy teaching philosophy
My teaching philosophy could be summarized as follows: Teaching must be an art of working toward and anticipating student success through measurable outcomes. It does not matter how smart one is, if he or she cannot communicate his or her knowledge to others efficiently enough to obtain verifiable results, then he or she should not be teaching.
Before each semester begins, I sit down and devise a plan on how to teach each of my classes so that at the end of the semester I can be certain that if asked, my students will say that they have learned a lot from my class. My greatest reward in teaching is to see the results, to know that I have contributed effectively to someone’s education. I believe that for learning to occur, the instructor must not intimidate the students; they should enjoy the class enough to look forward to it. The instructor must set the stage, create the right environment from the very first day of class whether online or face to face. The instructor’s relationship with his or her students should be such that they feel comfortable to tell the instructor if there are any outside circumstances that might hinder their learning. The instructor must not confuse fear with respect. The former will only disguise a lack of the latter, hence, hinder learning. The instructor should never pretend to know it all. Instructors should always let their students know that they are one of many resources available to them and point them to the resources that they know of. I believe the lecturer-pupil teaching style is outdated. Students must be involved 100% in their learning. They must participate fully in the learning process by doing research, reading, and relevant projects.
My passion for verifiable success in educating my students has prompted me to investigate our teaching methods in general. Through my experience in teaching, I have found that students feel a lot more comfortable with their peers than they do with their instructors when it comes to learning. They are more likely to ask questions and to talk about their weaknesses when they are assigned group projects. I have also realized teaching is a lot harder than learning which is why I try to engage my students in learning on their own while I guide them in finding and utilizing available resources. Hence, online learning is perfectly in line with my teaching style.
- I engage my students in every class by asking challenging and practical questions. The class discussions in the online environment are perfect for this strategy. In addition, I assign relevant group projects that can be packaged and used in the real world. Students show more interest on projects that they can relate to. When you present them with real world problems, they tend to be more apt at trying to find the appropriate solutions.
- I require collaborative learning because I believe and I have seen that students tend to learn a lot more from working in groups than on their own. I assign group projects and base some of their individual grades on their peer evaluations. This prevents them from wanting to be free riders. This strategy has proven to be very effective in that it not only prepares them for the real world, but it changes their views about team-based environments. I understand that this method is not error-proof in an online environment but it is worth trying.
Most of what I do in my face-to-face environment can be applied to the online environment with some minor necessary adjustments given the exceptional tools that are available for online teaching and learning. I believe relevant and challenging discussion topics are crucial to engaging students in online classes and assessing their understanding of the modules being covered.