Teaching Statement of Philosophy
With over 20 years of classroom experience, and even more as a student I have had the opportunity to learn what does and does not work in effectively enhancing the learning achieved by students. I classify the learning experience into three distinct categories;
Learning Category and Examples
Passive Learning- Reading, Lecture, Video
Interactive Learning - Discussion, Group Meeting, E-mail, Bulletin Board, Chat, IM
Experiential Learning - Laboratory, open-ended assignments, group projects
Each of these categories has unique characteristics and students are unique in the combination of each category used to effectively learn and retain material. The best way to teach so as to optimize learning is to use the most effective combination of these categories and the specific elements contained within each category. A good teacher is more than just someone who can lecture well and organize a class – some of the classes that I retained the most information from were taught by what would be considered poor teachers by just these standards. It must involve a deeper understanding of how students learn and an ability to apply the correct combination of these elements to create a learning experience for the student.
Assessment
No discussion of teaching would be complete without also a discussion of assessment. As teachers and professors we fulfill two roles; to teach and to assess the students ability in the subject taught. The traditional method of assessment is the exam, and this is likely to remain so. However, the exam is a poor indicator of how well any person will perform in a real workplace setting, and if the ultimate goal of a college education is to prepare the student for this environment – we must do a better job of preparing them and assessing them. Exams and homework grading should not be the only means of assessment used to determine student grades. Other measures such as project performance, participation, and teamwork, among others do have a role in student assessment.
