Teaching Philosophy

The primary focus of my teaching philosophy is making information relevant for students and presenting material in an engaging way. Student’s ability to see the relevance of a concept will motivate them to understand it so they’ll have the ability to apply it in other endeavors. As well, material presented to students in multiple formats gives every student an opportunity to learn by whatever method best suits the individual’s learning style. Demonstration and continual practice bring key principles of a lesson home for students and help them improve with each attempt. This is particularly important in an online environment where students may feel isolated, so every attempt needs be made to develop an online learning community.

The role of a teacher is to facilitate student’s learning giving them the ability to make connections between what they are learning and how to apply it in the real world. Because of diverse learning styles and life experiences, students may make a variety of connections and when those are shared with classmates, everyone has the opportunity to realize a new way of connecting the information; or at least validating their own ideas. Merely lecturing to students is not the best method to really have them grasp concepts and be able to apply them to other things, so the instructors role should be one of pointing the student in the right direction so they can make connections and draw conclusions on their own.

When working with students in an online environment it becomes even more important to try to integrate all the same elements into your class, but they will most likely be approached in a different way. The most important element of teaching in an online environment is keeping the students feeling connected. This can be accomplished by using discussion board, online classrooms, instant messaging, and, even more interactive things such as Skype which is capable of audio and video conferencing as many as ten people together. Because not all students have the ability or the resources to use some of the more advanced technology, instructors can also make videos with software such as Tegrity or Camtasia or even YouTube replacing in class lectures and allowing students the opportunity to get to know their instructor a little better. Students will be more successful in the class if they can be kept connected to the other students and the instructor.