Teaching Philosophy

During my internship at a Title I school, I observed the benefits that culturally relevant teaching can have on transferring skills beyond the classroom. Topics like science & math fail to transfer beyond the classroom if material is not presented with taking the experiences & backgrounds of the students into account. My goal, as an educator, is to incorporate these two areas into my lessons. To incorporate student experience & background, I will connect with students on a personal level to learn their interests, background, and culture. A commitment to incorporate student background will make students feel understood & supported. In addition to practicing culturally relevant teaching, I will ask my students to view knowledge through a critical lens and develop evidence for the concepts they master in class. By viewing knowledge critically, the retention of transferable skills, like critical thinking, problem-solving, and mathematical reasoning, will increase.

           

My culturally relevant approach to teaching is built from viewing students as a source of knowledge & perspective. This ties to my constructivist view of learning that I will implement in my classroom. In a constructivist classroom, inquiry-based lessons allow students to engage in hands-on physical models where they create understanding through experimentation & collaboration with their peers & myself. This approach to learning allows students to convert abstract science/math concepts to concrete physical examples. When students reflect upon their experiences, collaborate ideas with their peers, and continually evolve their model of the world, they construct their knowledge through Piaget’s schemata theory (the theory that knowledge is a product of encountering new information and finding a way to fit it into your previously held beliefs (assimilation) or creating new meaning from them (accommodation)).

           

Given that students may display their mastery of material in different ways, I want to incorporate differentiated practice for students in my classroom. The motive behind this stems from my belief in Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. These intelligences include linguistic, musical, and logical-mathematical to name a few. As an educator, I will emphasize to my students that content mastery exists in a variety of representations. To incorporate differentiated practice, I plan to use project-based assessments to allow students to demonstrate the skills they developed in their own unique way. By acknowledging the multiple intelligences that the students have, I am able to evaluate my students’ full potential and not limit them to mastery in one sole representation.