“You cannot teach a person anything- you can only help them discover it in themselves.” – Galileo Galilei
My desire to become an exceptional university educator extends from my lifelong endeavors to connect with people, to understand how they think and perceive, and to have an impact on their ability to make conscious decisions about the ways in which they choose to live. My philosophy of teaching arises from my own continued efforts in being a creative and disciplined learner, as well as my desire to ignite passion and purpose into the lives of others. I am often moved by the unique opportunity we have as human beings to process, ponder and question the world and the human condition around us, and I want nothing more than to transmit this zest and excitement for waking up everyday excited to be alive and to learn.
Throughout my years as a student, I have been extremely lucky to have had many exceptional teachers who were able to convey their fascination and passion for the natural world and for learning through their enthusiasm, their teaching, and their genuine care for my development and well-being. For example, in seventh grade, my science teacher created a year-long field study in which my classmates and I observed several forest sites in various stages of ecological succession. We learned to dig holes and draw soil profiles, to sift soil to measure size composition, to count species and make charts, how to generate scientific hypotheses and write scientific reports, and overall, to appreciate the importance of succession and change in nature. I still keep the thick report I assembled for this seventh grade final project – it reminds me of the contagious joy and curiosity my teacher brought to our class, the pure excitement I experienced at feeling like a “real” scientist, and of the direct impact this teacher had on my decision to pursue a career and a life in science and its teaching.
I believe that learners construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences, the way we experienced and described natural succession in a forest in seventh grade. When we encounter something new, we must merge it with our previous ideas and experiences, perhaps changing what we believe, or else casting off the new information as irrelevant. In either case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. In order to create knowledge, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know. I implement this constructivist view of learning in the classroom by using active techniques such as experiments, discussion, and real-world problem solving to help students create new knowledge and then reflect and share about what they are doing and how their understanding is transforming. I participate with the students in this reflection and discussion to ensure that I am aware of their pre-existing ideas and I help to guide classroom activities to address these preconceptions and to change or build upon them. These approaches transform the role of a student from being a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process.
My personal experience of this type of active learning has brought me a great deal of confidence in my ability to grapple with experiences and information and figure out how best to integrate them with what understanding already exists in my mind. This confidence radiates to other areas of my life including sports, relationships, and teaching, where I know I can apply my learning skills in order to be successful in reaching the goals I set for myself. As such, when I am choosing teaching strategies to employ in the classroom, I have one primary goal in mind: I want my students to learn how to learn. I also want to share with them the intellectual richness and wonder of science, the way my seventh grade teacher did with me.
One of the greatest rewards of being a teacher is being witness to a student’s struggle to learn until the moment a light goes on for them and suddenly their understanding of the world around them begins to shift. Perhaps an even larger reward of being a teacher is the ability to help students to extend this confidence and process of learning into their lives and to reflect critically on what they most desire to create with their lives and how or who they want to be in the world. Helping students build confidence in themselves and their abilities to be and do absolutely anything they want to is central to my philosophy of teaching as well as to my philosophy of life.
I wish to improve higher education by treating my role as a teacher with equal importance to my role as a researcher. I expect myself to take the same critical and reflective approach to my teaching as I do to my research, that is, to develop hypotheses and experiments to test what works best for students and to adapt my teaching methods as such, and to continue developing my teaching abilities and philosophies throughout my life. I wish to inspire other professors to treat their students with respect and care, and to take an interest in developing their teaching and considering how it impacts students’ lives. I intend to contribute toward the development of programs in Canadian universities that will provide training and support for professors in developing their teaching skills and philosophies. One day I hope that this training will be mandatory for all instructors who wish to teach in universities. I wish to make the world a better place by helping others cultivate an authentic confidence in themselves and their abilities, and to assist them in answering the question “if anything in life is possible, what do I want to create?”.
As a new university educator, I feel that there are numerous ways in which I can improve the quality of my teaching. I will continue with my reflective practice on my teaching and learning experiences and look for ways to apply what I discover in the classroom, as will I continue to participate in the self-definition of my teaching philosophy and goals by keeping my teaching portfolio up-to-date and documented. I intend to learn by observing and discussing teaching with other faculty members and graduate students, and participating in professional development activities geared towards teaching and learning. More specifically, I would like to refine my skills in using questioning techniques in the classroom, in fostering class discussion in large classes, and in the development and implementation of assessment and evaluation techniques that provide students will ample formative feedback on their learning as well as provide me with feedback on the effectiveness of my teaching. I feel that if I keep reflecting, evaluating my progress as a teacher and being willing to change, I am certain to succeed in enriching the learning experiences of my students and in making a positive and meaningful contribution to their lives.
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