My Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy has been shaped by many things. I believe that the first day itself is very important for a new academic year. Hence that plays a vital role in students learning throughout the year. From the first day onwards I try to make my students feel comfortable and open to learning. I announce that all the questions are welcome and that they should feel free to interrupt me. On the same day with mutual understanding between the teacher and students I make some certain classroom rules and the expectations, so that they can focus more on being successful.

 Furthermore, I possess a collaborative classroom management style. I prefer to give my students control and freedom up to some extent as students need to be motivated. I would give praise and reinforcement to the students in order to make them understand that the teacher values what they are doing. On the other hand, I refuse to give punishment to the students who misbehave, but prefer to find out the reason of misbehavior and then give help to correct the misbehavior.

Similarly, I should also take in account, of how children learn and why they behave as they do. There are different views of behaviourists and psychologists, on how children learn. Cognitive Psychologists claim that children learn from an interaction of both inner and outer influences where else behaviourists claim that children are influenced by the environment. If humans are exclusively shaped by their environment, as behaviourists claim, responsible self-regulation is impossible. However, I stick both the Cognitive and behavioural psychologists’ point of view of how children learn.

I also adapt my teaching styles and techniques to benefit the students that I am teaching. I believe that it is important for teachers to find out what type of learners they have in their classrooms. Students usually fall in one or more than one of three categories. Students can be auditory, visual or kinaesthetic learners. When I create the lessons, I incorporate student centred approaches whenever possible and try to relate the topics to real life situations to help motivate students. I often use cooperative learning often so that students can work together and learn from one another which lead to   benefit the different types of learners in my classroom.

I believe that assessing students learning is a teacher’s most important method of understanding teachers’ success in teaching, and students’ success in learning. How I assess my students is something for which I must strive for perfection. I want to find the ideal way to assess my students in a way that truly evaluates their educational gains. I plan to be an active assessor and perform both informal and formal assessment in my classroom.

In wrapping up my personal philosophy of teaching, I would like to say I have tried to include some of my attitudes, beliefs and views in an organized manner regarding teaching and learning. It is equally important to remain open minded to new trends and techniques that may benefit our students. My educational philosophy is not static; it changes with time and experience, and I will continually reflect, examine and refine what I believe and why I believe it. I believe that my philosophy and the way I understand things will change with the knowledge that I gain. With this change I am open to anything and my views will be flexible and as open to options as I can be.