Teaching Philosophy
Teaching has always been my dream since I was about eight years old to become a teacher. My parents stressed to me since I was very young how important education is and the opportunities that come from having an education: consequently, their guidance is a direct result of themselves both missing out on furthering or continuing their education. I want to fulfill a life-long dream and I feel that a teacher can play an inspirational role in a child’s journey through their young life. I want to be able to impact and motivate children to perform at their best and possibly allow me to make a difference in their lives through education. I want to be the impact to students like a former teacher did in my life. When I was in 4th grade elementary year, I can remember my teacher having the passion for teaching and his desire to make the interactions we had both fun and enjoyable. He was very interactive and hands-on in his approach to deliver his lessons; as a result, it made learning the material easy and memorable. I want to be just like my 4th grade teacher, I want my students to want to go to school because they want to go and not because they must.
I want to create a classroom that will make students feel safe, comfortable and inviting. I want to get to know every student that enters my classroom. I want to get to know their cultural or socioeconomic background. I would like for my students to feel comfortable with me and I want to be that support they might need because not every child has the support they need at home. I would want my students to feel like they are part of a family and we all truly care for one another. I would set high expectations for them because there is always room for improvement. With my experience has a substitute and through my learning experience at UTEP I have learned that every student learns different. Therefore, I would incorporate many teaching strategies to accommodate every level and types of learning. I would make my learning material fun and engaging to encourage students to want to learn and hopefully be memorable as my 4th grade teacher did. Some of my teaching strategies would include group projects, role-playing, hands-on activities, and online resources like Kahoot. By providing different methods of learning students will experience different ways to understand the concept.
Assessments are done from beginning to end of a school year to verify students are obtaining the material being taught to them. There are different ways of assessing students without them feeling the pressure of “tests”. Everyone learns in different ways. Therefore, students in my class will be assessed in different ways such as them doing individual or group projects, providing rubrics for assignments, exit ticket and peer evaluations. Projects at school could be helpful because I will be able to monitor their progress. Also, if working in groups they could help each other within their group and explain further if they didn’t get the concept of something. If help is needed, I would be there to assist. Rubrics are great because they will know what is expected from them and be held accountable to for what is required from them on the assignments. Exit tickets can be given to students after lessons to verify what the student understood from the material. Peer evaluations will provide constructive criticism to their peers. I feel like there are some students that can memorize things instead of them learning the content. Also, since kids love technology working on a presentation for students to present to the class could be another way to assess them. The presentation can provide a different way of the other students to possibly comprehend the material in a different way in case it was not understood by the teacher. Having discussions with the class could be another way of assessing them to make sure that they are understanding what is being taught.
Student’s input is very important because that will help us teachers improve the way we teach. Since, every student learns in their own way they may suggest a different way they learn things that could benefit someone else. I will improve my teaching by staying consistent in my learning because there is always something new to learn and things tend to change. Also, by meeting with the other teachers in the same grade that can work together in coming up with ideas to teach or mentor me in teaching. Attending workshops could be very helpful to learn new things. As a future educator we need to be a role model to our students, and we need to set an example that there is always something new to learn no matter how old we are. As a teacher, I will know that I taught effectively when the students are engaged in the lessons and are ready to learn. The greatest feeling will be when a student tells you “Thank you for teaching me something new”, that’s when is realized you are doing the right thing. Technology now is a big thing in our society especially after Covid-19 that students had to do online school. I would use technology to show educational videos for additional way of learning specially for those students who are visual. There are some educational programs that could be engaging for students that they could learn from. For instance, Education Galaxy is a program that allows for the student to play a game after each correct question. There are so many other programs that will get students engaged in that could help with the lesson if it doesn’t take over from teaching the material. Technology is all around us so it will help the student in the real world too.