My teaching philosophy...
Anyone with open eyes and ears can detect that in the world we live in, there is a lot of room for improvement. I believe that the greatest changes take time, but every great change requires a catalyst. I believe that every person has something to contribute to the betterment of society. Whether your passions lie in conserving the environment, reducing poverty, spreading awareness, ironing-out politics, and so forth-- it is our greatest responsibility to pursue our passions and help shape whatever change should occur.
As a teacher, I believe it is my greatest responsibility to help students discover their passions and realize how significant their actions are. I believe in the power of choice. You can choose to smile, be friendly, be timely and to be respectful or you can choose the opposite. Beyond revealing passions and teaching mathematics,.. it is a teacher's highest priority to help students understand the implications of every decision they make and simultaneously show them that it is okay to make mistakes so long as they know how to rise above them.
Lastly, but absolutely foremost, I believe in leading by example. Every teacher should live their lives as if they were being watched by their students in every moment. We should never stop learning, and we should always be applying what we have learned through out the course of our lives.
My goals and aspirations...
I described my fundamental objectives within my teaching philosophy. In order to teach these character principles, I plan to use social media such as blogging, twitter, google, and other WEB 2.0 tools to increase my students technological literacy, exchange teaching strategies, and enable cultural exchanges.
The more a teacher can safely expose their students to, the more opportunities their students will have to discover their passions. If I recommend they watch a classic movie that might build character or reveal social enigmas, they might discover their interests in film by witnessing first-hand the power of quality movies. I hope to also establish connections between students around the world and my own so that my class can see what they should appreciate about their own experiences and what they could strive to gain; this in conjunction with a government lesson might help them discover their fire for politics or ambassador work.
The possibilities are endless, but it all boils down to reaching beyond the classroom walls into the lives of others and seeing what my students find. I want them to be able to do this with a variety of tools and I plan to employ books, technology, media, and community engagement to do so.
Blogging
Blogging has been the most difficult thing for me to wrap my mind around in terms of educational uses. Since starting this class, I began my own personal blog which I have found as a useful tool for recording those extra thoughts that just tend to float around or the ones that we just can't seem to push out of our mind. However, for education, it just dawned on me that I would like my students to publish their essays on a blog. This will help me as a teacher because I can track their progress throughout the writing process and their writing skills progression throughout the course. Also, if it is published in a blog, their peers can review it and offer constructive criticism or just learn from one another.
Most subjects have to follow specific guidelines in the state of Alabama. Each day and week educators are having to cover certain topics and goals. If this weeks goal is to cover "The Second World War" then the chances are that other teachers are doing the same thing. Blogging allows interaction between students at different schools throughout the state and is protected by you the teacher. This means that discussion and ideas will flow between members of different schools and spark interest and creativity. When shared with other people around the world, they may see how that time period is reflected in Germany, Japan, or Australia. Writing an essay about the subject can be something that they work on and revise as the semester goes on and their interpretation changes. Teachers also save time because the comments are written or researched by other people and all we have to do is read them. Great way to go green, improve writing, and develop a subject.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the in-put Jim. This was actually from last semester. I guess this is a perfect testament of how much my perspective on blogging has changed now that I applied myself to this class a little more aggressively. I am excited to read your Pro Blog. Keep up the amazing work!
ReplyDeletePs. Dr. Strange told me about the Blog Grant Movie project for next week-- I am definitely on board, but we better hop to it before they get out of school!
Take a look at the two comments above. Excellent evidence for the power of blogging AND COMMENTING on blogs. That is why they are so important. The comments!
ReplyDeleteThanks to you Anthony, and to you Jim, for being outstanding in the use of and commenting on blogs!