Teaching Philosophy Statement

The consideration of an educational Philosophy usually brings one back to philosophies

that resonated with one's self while he or she attended school. Different educational
philosophies work for different subjects, while science can too often become boring and
dry for many. My educational philosophy is centered on some of the tenets central to
science itself: the exploration and manipulation of our surroundings to learn about them.

As with any scientific endeavor, one begins with a problem or anomaly and begins the
scientific process with a hypothesis. Through the establishment of a hypothesis, one takes
the initiative to experiment to come to an evidence-based conclusion. Problem-based
learning fits into the scientific process extremely well as according to Wood
(2003), problem-based learning is all about students taking that initiative to define their
own learning objectives and outcomes. To help understand the world around us and excel
in any science class, students must be able to take initiative and structure experiments.

To be able to conduct such experiments, students must also be able to manipulate,

interact, and recognize patterns. These skills are all crucial to observation in the scientific
process as proper observation is crucial to the success of any experiment. Discoverybased learning fits in to this philosophy exceptionally well as, Learners to interact with
materials, manipulate variables, explore phenomena, and attempt to apply principles
affords them with opportunities to notice patterns, discover underlying causalities, and
learn in ways that are seemingly more robust. (Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, & Tenenbaum,
2011 p.3). The scientific process is an active and interactive one, and I want my future

students to be able to explore and learn as much as possible.

These two educational philosophies resonate most with my own personal educational
philosophy and I cannot wait to apply them in the classroom. I want my future students to
be encouraged to observe, manipulate, and explore as much as they can while they are in
the classroom with me. Ultimately this philosophy will encourage my students to
continually ask the most important and basic of questions: why?

References
Alfieri, L., Brooks, P. J., Aldrich, N. J., & Tenenbaum, H. R. (2011). Does discoverybased instruction enhance learning? Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(1),
1-18. doi:10.1037/a0021017

Wood, F. D. (2003). Problem based learning. Bmj, (326) Retrieved from

http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7384/328.short