Running head: Teaching philosophy 1

Teaching Philosophy

Ivette Falcon

12/11/18

University of Texas at EL Paso.

Teaching Philosophy

My passion for teaching and learning mathematics has led me to the specific goal of

helping students obtain knowledge and the same passion for mathematics as I have. The best way

to achieve my goal of helping my students will be by having a non-traditional lecture classroom

where my students learn by doing active learning which leads them to analyze, evaluate, and

create since according to Dale (1969), “students learn 90% of what they say and do”. My focus

on my classroom will be to assess my students every day, so I can adapt to their specific learning

styles and create a safe environment that motivates them. For example, as a teacher knowing if

you have ELLs in your classes who learned in foreign countries is important. This is especially

important in mathematics since according to Philipp (1996) mathematics teachers could use

different types of cultural algorithms to adapt to a specific learning style instead of teaching one

isolated procedure. Adapting to all learning styles is important for me so that I can improve my

own teaching style using The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird, 2011) and more importantly using

students, administrative and parental feedback. Involving parents and families in my teaching is

important since it can lead to a more motivating environment where students can feel free to ask

questions, make mistakes, and challenge themselves. It is by breaking down the barriers to

learning that students can face their own misconceptions.

As a teacher, one of the most important things is to make sure your students are

successfully learning your content. Additionally, it is important that we as teachers are learning

with the students how to adapt to their learning styles. I want to create a flourishing learning

environment that cultivates a thriving atmosphere for creativity and critical thinking. Learning

should always be an active process that encourages students to integrate their skills to real-world
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challenges. What motivates my goals is the constructivism learning theory which explains that

the learners are an information constructor that construct and create with the new information

given. Which goes hand in hand with the cone of learning (Dale, 1969) which again as

mentioned explains that students will tend to remember based on their level of involvement in

instruction. In other words, students tend to remember 90% of what they both say and do. This is

important to me because it proves that as teachers if we want to be successful, we should not just

be lecturing. As teachers, if we just lecture our students, they will only remember 10% of what

they read and 20% of what they hear. This leads the classroom environment and learning to an

ineffective place because as a teacher we should thrive to use different lessons that will help all

learning styles learn. In other words, as teachers, we should aspire to have our students achieve a

higher ranking on the New Blooms Categories mentioned on The Fundamental 5 book where our

students can successfully analyze, evaluate, and create things that relate to the lesson and the

content. To be able to achieve this higher-level critical thinking in my students I want to be able

to perform the fundamental five practices. The fundamental five are five critical practices that

are highly effective in teaching which include: framing the lesson, working in the power zone,

small-group purposeful talk, recognize and reinforce, and writing critically. The fundamental

five practices, in my opinion, are a teaching strategy so incredibly powerful when a routine is

established helping students to also be more organized.

Integrating different strategies and tools into our teaching is the most important

ingredient in teaching because it makes sure that no matter what you’re teaching you have a

component that includes all learning styles. According to Gardner (2006), all students in every

classroom differ in many ways whether the student learns best through auditory, visual, or
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kinesthetic approaches which should lead all teachers to accommodate to the needs among

students by using differentiating instruction. Since all students should receive equity learning

through appropriate accommodations. Hence, as a teacher, using differentiating learning

especially in mathematics helps the teacher always come to incorporate whether it's across lesson

planning or incorporating all students into the class, so they feel welcome and ready to learn.

Making sure as a teacher that you are incorporating all learning styles in your lesson is important

because not only it creates a safe environment but as a teacher, you will never have two students

that are the same. In other words, as a teacher, you must account for visual learners, kinesthetic

learners, auditory learners, English Language Learners, students with Disabilities, Inclusion,

Gifted Students, and all the other types of students you might encounter. Integrating different fun

and creative lessons create an environment where the teacher can pass on motivation to the

students. As teachers, we must remember that depending on what attitude and behavior you give

to your students, this includes bias, the students will react the same way you do to the lesson or

even other students. Therefore, the best way to keep a positive attitude that will be contagious to

our students is to assess our classroom and adapt to all learning styles.

In learning and teaching, one of the last few things I find crucial is to assess the students’

learning curve throughout the school year. My way to ensure students are learning is to do

assessments every day, either by formative or summative assessments. Assessments are a way

for both students and teacher to learn and get feedback, which also helps teachers identify

learning gaps and adjustments needed to make the lessons more efficient. Formative assessment

seeks to determine how the students are progressing through low or no point value and

summative assessments seek to evaluate the students learning at the end of an instructional unit
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trough high point value (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). I prefer formative assessments to find out

if a student is learning even though summative assessments are important too. Additionally, I

prefer formative assessment because as a teacher you and the student can learn more. This is

because students participate more since they are more relaxed about being wrong without the

fear of their grade. The way I would perform formative assessment would be with things like

discussions (class discussions, group discussions, Socratic Seminar), games (scavenger hunts,

unfair game, Quizlet Live, Kahoot), open-ended questions, hands signals, reflecting/summarizing

(journal reflections, just giving them time to write their thought), four corners, think-pair-share,

and 3-2-1 (3 things learned, 2 things you want to know more about, 1 question). Using these

ways to do formative assessments will help me not just promote learning of the subject matter,

but also try to help the students learn to think logically, learn problem-solving methods, improve

writing skills, and reasons for logical arguments.

Every classroom has its own unique community; my role as a teacher will be to assist

each child in developing their own potential and learning styles. However, learning doesn’t end

in the classroom because children are more successful in their learning when parents are

involved. I believe that involving the parents is important because not only can I use their

feedback to help me adapt to the students learning style, but it promotes positive classroom

behavior, makes sure children do their homework, help them be more organized, enforce

disciplinary measures and validate their effort. It’s critical to make sure to involve the parents in

the students learning to build a bridge of communication and maintain an open-door policy so

parents can understand the students’ learning is the priority. Communication between the

teachers and the parents is important either that be for bad behavior that must be fixed or also to
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share how amazing their children are doing in the classroom. I understand that many parents are

busy with work, so making sure to be available to them is important to me either that be by

phone calls, scheduling options, and via email. Involvement from the parents turns out to be very

precious time so students can be successful, and it also provides valuable insight into the students

learning. The valuable insight they provide will help me do more effective formative assessments

that will help me adapt my teaching style to suit the students learning the style. Hence, one of

my teaching philosophies it to encourage prenatal involvements in the classroom.

Finally, all the teaching strategies I believe in and want to achieve when teaching will all

be supported by having an effective collegial relationship and collaboration with administration

and colleagues. Teaching is about relationships. I believe that while students, parents, and

administrators really affect the collaborative, your connections with colleagues will also play one

of the largest roles in your ability to enjoy your work and grow as a professional. In my opinion,

having a good relationship with other teachers is important because it can create and build a

more collaborative atmosphere in schools. There are many ways to create a positive safe and

creative environment between my colleagues and administration so that we form a strong team

for our students. Some examples that I believe should take place in every school is collogues

teach and learn from each other, we collaborate on lesson plans, we share techniques that work

and give amazing results in our classroom, we also give each other feedback that helps our

teaching styles to grow, and we collaborate on creative ideas that help merge our lesson or even

co-teach. Because in the end all the teaching strategies and collaborations you do as a teacher is

just to create the best environment possible for your students to grow and learn.
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In conclusion, my teaching philosophy is that all children are unique, so I will assist them

to always express themselves and accept themselves for who they are, as well to embrace the

difference of others. Consequently, I want to become a teacher that always has a lesson and

classroom filled with these proven strategies: active learning, critical thinking, creativity, real-

world open-ended problems, assessments, the inclusion of all learning styles, and a safe positive

environment. These are important when teaching because it helps activate the main goal of

helping students learn the content. Teaching is not just about using all these strategies during

your lesson, but about helping all students learn the content. Implementing these learning

strategies also helps the students learn what is the best learning strategy for themselves to keep

using in the future. All these teaching strategies, theories, and philosophies are important to me

because they all prove that in teaching the most important thing ever are the students and their

success. Hence, as I keep learning about teaching and teaching strategies, I am looking forward

to continuing to grow as a teacher, so I can successfully help my future students succeed in their

learning.
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References

Cain S. & Laird M. (2011). The Fundamental 5. California: CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Platform

Dale, E. (1969). Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching (3rd edition). London: The Dryden Press

Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple intelligences: New horizons (Completely rev. and updated.). New

York: BasicBooks.

Philipp, R. A. (1996). Multicultural Mathematics and Alternative Algorithms. Teaching

Children Mathematics, pp. 128-133.

Small M. & Lin A. (2010). Great Ways to Differentiate Secondary Mathematics Instruction.

New York: Teachers College Press.

Wiggins G. & McTighe J. (2005). Understanding by Design (2nd edition). Alexandria, Virginia:

Assn. for Supervision & Curriculum Development.