As an educator, having a philosophy and platform of beliefs is important as it drives your reasoning for instruction and motivation for teaching every day. Over these past two years in the Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program, I have developed my own set of beliefs in the classroom. I am continually reflecting on my experiences to develop my philosophy and beliefs as educator.
Philosophy
There is no doubt that I have a love for teaching that grows every single day with each lesson, success, and smile on my students faces. It’s this passion for teaching that drives what I do and what I believe in as a teacher to help my students reach their fullest potential. Through my coursework and experiences, I have developed my platform of beliefs as an educator that I strive to fulfill in all aspects of teaching.
I believe that all students can learn, and as a teacher my role is to provide them with the tools and support they need to soar and achieve. I believe that students learn best when they are the ones doing. Aligning with this, I create a student-centered classroom where real world, relatable experiences are brought into the classroom and students use critical thinking skills to inquire and make discoveries into their own learning. By actively engaging students in problem solving across content areas, students become life-long, proud learners.
I believe that a strong component behind building student’s content knowledge is building student confidence and being attentive to student’s emotional needs. I strive to create a class where students come in every day eager to learn and leave feeling excited and proud of what they have learned. This means a strong effort on my part to get to know each and every one of my students and provide them with support to build their confidence as a learner and as an individual. When students have this support, not only will they blossom in their learning, but they will love learning and gain the confidence to continue to be life-long learners.
Below you will find my philosophies on teaching in many areas of the classroom. As a teacher, I believe the most important question to ask yourself with each instructional decision is, “Who is this benefiting: myself or my students?” When we teach, we are teaching with our students in mind. Sometimes with the fast-paced and demanding days, we can lose sight of this. This is why it is so important to continue asking ourselves this question, assuring that what we do is for the benefit of our students. In my philosophies, I discuss how my beliefs as an educator benefits my students the best I believe they can.
Classroom Environment and Management
Through my experiences in the classroom, countless discussions, and collaboration with my peers and partners in the Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program, I have developed a platform of beliefs on classroom management. I strive to create a safe and comfortable learning community where students are conscious of their responsibilities and take pride in their learning.
In creating a learning environment, I believe that it is important to foster a physical space where students feel safe, comfortable, and learning is evident. I want to create a classroom space that is open—where students are easily able to move around the room and access learning materials and supplies. This open classroom is not only welcoming, but it also invites students to learn by always having these tools visible and accessible to them. This physical space can’t all be set up by me though—I need my students to help! Rather than filling the walls of our classroom with store-bought posters with little meaning, we can create meaning in our classroom decorations together. By displaying student work and other evidence of learning that we have created as a class together around the room, students can walk into a classroom they are proud to be a part of. By decorating our walls we are able to show all of our visitors how much what we’ve learned and how much we’ve enjoyed learning.
Students should walk into a classroom where they feel safe and welcomed by their peers, teacher, and other members of the school community. To create this safe feeling for my students, I strive to create a classroom community where students feel comfortable to respectively express themselves, participate in discussion, and collaborate with peers in a friendly and open environment. While creating this environment takes a lot of effort and needs to be continuously practiced throughout the year, it teaches students social, communication, and life skills that will help them succeed in and out of the classroom for a lifetime. Through morning meetings, use of accountable talk, and other meaningful social activities, a classroom community where mutual respect is shared amongst all members can be created.
In order to maintain behaviors, I believe that a system of rewards and consequences should be set in place, just how in life there are rewards and consequences for our actions. I also believe in a system where students are able to take responsibility for their own actions. For this strategy to be most effective for them, students should take part in deciding what rewards and consequences are fair for behaviors. In doing this, students are consciously aware and creating these decisions together, holding themselves accountable for their actions. When a student receives a reward or consequence, it has become more meaningful to them because they have decided that this is what is fair. This teaches students to become individually aware of their actions, realizing that decisions that we make are followed by rewards and consequences. This life lesson helps students to think more about the actions they are making and teaches them to ultimately make better choices. While I’m still unsure about why visual system I would prefer to use, it is this philosophy that will guide my classroom management.
Literacy
For me, literacy is such a joyful subject to teach. I believe that literacy should be taught with purpose and creativity to guide it’s learners while also giving them the opportunity to express themselves and explore others imaginations. I believe that literacy should integrate many subjects and be exposed through different contexts, exposing students to the different purposes for reading and writing and letting them discover the part of literacy they enjoy. Lastly, I see the connection between reading and writing to be immensely strong and powerful—I believe that this is a connection that should consistently be made evident to strengthen student’s skills and knowledge.
We often find literacy as one of the most stressed subjects in school. Rightfully so—we use literacy skills in all other subjects, whether it’s reading a map in social studies, reading a word problem in math, or writing in our science notebooks as scientists. With that being said, we shouldn’t be stressed—or making our kids stress—about literacy! A classroom where literacy is evident should be inviting to students—a warm and friendly reading area lined with books from endless genres, a visible word wall filled with words, and student work and papers that line the walls of the classroom. When we are teaching literacy, we should be showing students joyful it is by exposing them to the many purposes, contexts, and creativity!
Reading and writing are so perfectly intertwined together that I believe it is crucial to teach literacy with this connection strongly evident. I find in some classrooms the two are separated with little connections being made and students often take more time to progress when this is happening. By making this connection evident, students are constantly applying and developing both skills even when one is more strongly focused on. For example, students may be practicing reader’s theatre where they are focusing on reading fluently with expression by paying close attention to punctuation. After putting on a great play, students can use those skills to write a play of their own, using punctuation to give their writing voice. Again, they can practice this play for fluency and perform again for their peers. In this lesson, students would be practicing reading with fluency and expression by identifying punctuation, and then doing the opposite by applying these skills in their writing. Once again, they would be practicing fluency by performing their very own play to their peers; also gaining a sense of pride and confidence in their work. In a lesson such as this one, students use both reading and writing skills while being exposed to different contexts of reading, expressing their creativity, and gaining confidence in their ability.
I believe that literacy should integrate subjects. Before I begin to explain, I would first like to say that I see nothing wrong with lessons that do not integrate subjects—in life there are many times where we read and write for the purpose of enjoyment and it is very important that students see this and practice this as well. But appropriate, I believe that an opportunity to integrate another subject area should not be ignored. I believe this because just as we read and write for enjoyment, we read and write for many other purposes as well and exposing them to these different purposes allows them to discover their own reasons for wanting to read. By integrating these subject areas, we can not only expose students to another purpose, but also focus on a variety of literacy skills and see literacy in a variety of contexts. When we integrate another subject area, we can also teach students more about another subject that our schedule does not allow for much time for during another part of the day, such as science or social studies. For example, a literacy lesson may integrate science by learning about different insects. As a class, students can read and learn about insects through big books, non-fiction read alouds, and non-fiction articles during shared reading. Then students can be invited to explore books about insects with the purpose of becoming an “expert” during a book flood, where they find [a] book(s) about an insect that interests them and learn more about it. Now our experts can become authors and write their own non-fiction text using non-fiction features to write what they have learned about the insect they’ve become an expert on. Students can now teach their peers through their own non-fiction text! In this lesson, reading and writing are once again intertwined with the purpose of learning and applying non-fiction text features through a variety of texts while integrating science.
Science
A science classroom should be a place where there is a community of students as scientists, eager to learn through student-led exploration and discovery, inquiry, and connecting their learning to the world around them.
When I first began learning about teaching science, I was asked what teaching science should look like. Like many of my peers, I thought science should look “hands-on.” Over the past year, I’ve learned that the hands on component is just a small part of what I believe teaching science should really look like.
I believe that science is such an important subject for students to learn not only because it connects them to the world around them, but because it teaches students to inquire and use critical problem solving skills to satisfy these curiosities. The use of process skills and engagement in inquiry contributes to this idea as it provides students with the experience of solving real world situations through logic, questioning, and imagination. It develops process skills such as observing, predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, and communicating. Not only do we use these skills in everyday life outside of the classroom, but also across all subject areas. This teaches students to not always accept everyday ideas, but rather, find out for themselves.
Therefore, as a science teacher, I believe that it is important to set up a student-led environment that fosters and supports this learning through brainstorming, analyzing, testing, and reflecting. Tying this to my beliefs with classroom management, it is important in science to create a community where students feel comfortable to share their ideas and discuss them with their peers. This collaboration for students with their peers is essential in science as it helps students to think through problem solving, find testable ideas and solutions, and reflect on their learning.
As a teacher, my role is to not supply them with the answers—but rather, supply them with the tools and support they need. Using a 5E’s model—engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and extend—students learn as scientists. Through this model, students are applying process and critical thinking skills to make their own discoveries and learning. While my students are being scientists, I am helping to further their learning through open questioning that furthers their thinking, facilitating discussion, and providing them with tools and materials to help continue this learning.
Math
I believe that math should be taught through conceptual based learning-- not memorization. I find math to be one of the most creative subjects; with each problem we solve, there are countless ways to find one answer. Therefore, we shouldn’t be teaching students one way because that is not that way that each students mind thinks. By again incorporating critical thinking problem solving skills and providing students with the tools they need, we are allowing students to explore their math creativity to learn concepts and find solutions. Further, having discussions where students are able to share and respectively argue reasoning let’s students dig deeper and continue to develop their critical thinking.
I wondered how this could best be facilitated in a classroom that would allow for me to work with all students most effectively and efficiently. By doing research through published educational journals and articles, I found an article about a Balanced Math approach. In this approach, the teacher works with students through whole group and small group discussion. By beginning the math block with a whole group mini lesson, students are taught concepts and foundational skills through a variety of instructional strategies. Students then practice those skills through differentiated independent/partner activities while the teacher meets with small groups to further explore and dig deeper into concepts. Through this approach, students are taught conceptual knowledge then given the tools and support to problem solve independently and collaboratively with their peers while the teacher is able to assess student understanding through formative and summative assessment.
Philosophy
There is no doubt that I have a love for teaching that grows every single day with each lesson, success, and smile on my students faces. It’s this passion for teaching that drives what I do and what I believe in as a teacher to help my students reach their fullest potential. Through my coursework and experiences, I have developed my platform of beliefs as an educator that I strive to fulfill in all aspects of teaching.
I believe that all students can learn, and as a teacher my role is to provide them with the tools and support they need to soar and achieve. I believe that students learn best when they are the ones doing. Aligning with this, I create a student-centered classroom where real world, relatable experiences are brought into the classroom and students use critical thinking skills to inquire and make discoveries into their own learning. By actively engaging students in problem solving across content areas, students become life-long, proud learners.
I believe that a strong component behind building student’s content knowledge is building student confidence and being attentive to student’s emotional needs. I strive to create a class where students come in every day eager to learn and leave feeling excited and proud of what they have learned. This means a strong effort on my part to get to know each and every one of my students and provide them with support to build their confidence as a learner and as an individual. When students have this support, not only will they blossom in their learning, but they will love learning and gain the confidence to continue to be life-long learners.
Below you will find my philosophies on teaching in many areas of the classroom. As a teacher, I believe the most important question to ask yourself with each instructional decision is, “Who is this benefiting: myself or my students?” When we teach, we are teaching with our students in mind. Sometimes with the fast-paced and demanding days, we can lose sight of this. This is why it is so important to continue asking ourselves this question, assuring that what we do is for the benefit of our students. In my philosophies, I discuss how my beliefs as an educator benefits my students the best I believe they can.
Classroom Environment and Management
Through my experiences in the classroom, countless discussions, and collaboration with my peers and partners in the Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program, I have developed a platform of beliefs on classroom management. I strive to create a safe and comfortable learning community where students are conscious of their responsibilities and take pride in their learning.
In creating a learning environment, I believe that it is important to foster a physical space where students feel safe, comfortable, and learning is evident. I want to create a classroom space that is open—where students are easily able to move around the room and access learning materials and supplies. This open classroom is not only welcoming, but it also invites students to learn by always having these tools visible and accessible to them. This physical space can’t all be set up by me though—I need my students to help! Rather than filling the walls of our classroom with store-bought posters with little meaning, we can create meaning in our classroom decorations together. By displaying student work and other evidence of learning that we have created as a class together around the room, students can walk into a classroom they are proud to be a part of. By decorating our walls we are able to show all of our visitors how much what we’ve learned and how much we’ve enjoyed learning.
Students should walk into a classroom where they feel safe and welcomed by their peers, teacher, and other members of the school community. To create this safe feeling for my students, I strive to create a classroom community where students feel comfortable to respectively express themselves, participate in discussion, and collaborate with peers in a friendly and open environment. While creating this environment takes a lot of effort and needs to be continuously practiced throughout the year, it teaches students social, communication, and life skills that will help them succeed in and out of the classroom for a lifetime. Through morning meetings, use of accountable talk, and other meaningful social activities, a classroom community where mutual respect is shared amongst all members can be created.
In order to maintain behaviors, I believe that a system of rewards and consequences should be set in place, just how in life there are rewards and consequences for our actions. I also believe in a system where students are able to take responsibility for their own actions. For this strategy to be most effective for them, students should take part in deciding what rewards and consequences are fair for behaviors. In doing this, students are consciously aware and creating these decisions together, holding themselves accountable for their actions. When a student receives a reward or consequence, it has become more meaningful to them because they have decided that this is what is fair. This teaches students to become individually aware of their actions, realizing that decisions that we make are followed by rewards and consequences. This life lesson helps students to think more about the actions they are making and teaches them to ultimately make better choices. While I’m still unsure about why visual system I would prefer to use, it is this philosophy that will guide my classroom management.
Literacy
For me, literacy is such a joyful subject to teach. I believe that literacy should be taught with purpose and creativity to guide it’s learners while also giving them the opportunity to express themselves and explore others imaginations. I believe that literacy should integrate many subjects and be exposed through different contexts, exposing students to the different purposes for reading and writing and letting them discover the part of literacy they enjoy. Lastly, I see the connection between reading and writing to be immensely strong and powerful—I believe that this is a connection that should consistently be made evident to strengthen student’s skills and knowledge.
We often find literacy as one of the most stressed subjects in school. Rightfully so—we use literacy skills in all other subjects, whether it’s reading a map in social studies, reading a word problem in math, or writing in our science notebooks as scientists. With that being said, we shouldn’t be stressed—or making our kids stress—about literacy! A classroom where literacy is evident should be inviting to students—a warm and friendly reading area lined with books from endless genres, a visible word wall filled with words, and student work and papers that line the walls of the classroom. When we are teaching literacy, we should be showing students joyful it is by exposing them to the many purposes, contexts, and creativity!
Reading and writing are so perfectly intertwined together that I believe it is crucial to teach literacy with this connection strongly evident. I find in some classrooms the two are separated with little connections being made and students often take more time to progress when this is happening. By making this connection evident, students are constantly applying and developing both skills even when one is more strongly focused on. For example, students may be practicing reader’s theatre where they are focusing on reading fluently with expression by paying close attention to punctuation. After putting on a great play, students can use those skills to write a play of their own, using punctuation to give their writing voice. Again, they can practice this play for fluency and perform again for their peers. In this lesson, students would be practicing reading with fluency and expression by identifying punctuation, and then doing the opposite by applying these skills in their writing. Once again, they would be practicing fluency by performing their very own play to their peers; also gaining a sense of pride and confidence in their work. In a lesson such as this one, students use both reading and writing skills while being exposed to different contexts of reading, expressing their creativity, and gaining confidence in their ability.
I believe that literacy should integrate subjects. Before I begin to explain, I would first like to say that I see nothing wrong with lessons that do not integrate subjects—in life there are many times where we read and write for the purpose of enjoyment and it is very important that students see this and practice this as well. But appropriate, I believe that an opportunity to integrate another subject area should not be ignored. I believe this because just as we read and write for enjoyment, we read and write for many other purposes as well and exposing them to these different purposes allows them to discover their own reasons for wanting to read. By integrating these subject areas, we can not only expose students to another purpose, but also focus on a variety of literacy skills and see literacy in a variety of contexts. When we integrate another subject area, we can also teach students more about another subject that our schedule does not allow for much time for during another part of the day, such as science or social studies. For example, a literacy lesson may integrate science by learning about different insects. As a class, students can read and learn about insects through big books, non-fiction read alouds, and non-fiction articles during shared reading. Then students can be invited to explore books about insects with the purpose of becoming an “expert” during a book flood, where they find [a] book(s) about an insect that interests them and learn more about it. Now our experts can become authors and write their own non-fiction text using non-fiction features to write what they have learned about the insect they’ve become an expert on. Students can now teach their peers through their own non-fiction text! In this lesson, reading and writing are once again intertwined with the purpose of learning and applying non-fiction text features through a variety of texts while integrating science.
Science
A science classroom should be a place where there is a community of students as scientists, eager to learn through student-led exploration and discovery, inquiry, and connecting their learning to the world around them.
When I first began learning about teaching science, I was asked what teaching science should look like. Like many of my peers, I thought science should look “hands-on.” Over the past year, I’ve learned that the hands on component is just a small part of what I believe teaching science should really look like.
I believe that science is such an important subject for students to learn not only because it connects them to the world around them, but because it teaches students to inquire and use critical problem solving skills to satisfy these curiosities. The use of process skills and engagement in inquiry contributes to this idea as it provides students with the experience of solving real world situations through logic, questioning, and imagination. It develops process skills such as observing, predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, and communicating. Not only do we use these skills in everyday life outside of the classroom, but also across all subject areas. This teaches students to not always accept everyday ideas, but rather, find out for themselves.
Therefore, as a science teacher, I believe that it is important to set up a student-led environment that fosters and supports this learning through brainstorming, analyzing, testing, and reflecting. Tying this to my beliefs with classroom management, it is important in science to create a community where students feel comfortable to share their ideas and discuss them with their peers. This collaboration for students with their peers is essential in science as it helps students to think through problem solving, find testable ideas and solutions, and reflect on their learning.
As a teacher, my role is to not supply them with the answers—but rather, supply them with the tools and support they need. Using a 5E’s model—engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and extend—students learn as scientists. Through this model, students are applying process and critical thinking skills to make their own discoveries and learning. While my students are being scientists, I am helping to further their learning through open questioning that furthers their thinking, facilitating discussion, and providing them with tools and materials to help continue this learning.
Math
I believe that math should be taught through conceptual based learning-- not memorization. I find math to be one of the most creative subjects; with each problem we solve, there are countless ways to find one answer. Therefore, we shouldn’t be teaching students one way because that is not that way that each students mind thinks. By again incorporating critical thinking problem solving skills and providing students with the tools they need, we are allowing students to explore their math creativity to learn concepts and find solutions. Further, having discussions where students are able to share and respectively argue reasoning let’s students dig deeper and continue to develop their critical thinking.
I wondered how this could best be facilitated in a classroom that would allow for me to work with all students most effectively and efficiently. By doing research through published educational journals and articles, I found an article about a Balanced Math approach. In this approach, the teacher works with students through whole group and small group discussion. By beginning the math block with a whole group mini lesson, students are taught concepts and foundational skills through a variety of instructional strategies. Students then practice those skills through differentiated independent/partner activities while the teacher meets with small groups to further explore and dig deeper into concepts. Through this approach, students are taught conceptual knowledge then given the tools and support to problem solve independently and collaboratively with their peers while the teacher is able to assess student understanding through formative and summative assessment.