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Philosophy of Literacy Teaching & Learning

Alejandra Gutierrez

RED 2430
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Philosophy of Teaching

To inspire, impress, support, encourage, and improve the educational life of a learning

student is what makes me want to be a teacher. I want to be that teacher who is constantly paying

attention in the needs and requirements of her students. Keeping an opened mind and learning

from created minds and continues learning as they learn by my side. To teach is to touch hearts

forever and that is what I want to do as I start exploring more and more. I want to be that type of

teacher who aspires and transmits confidence into her students. The one who can always be

available to anyone who is struggling or just needs a hand. Being or bringing positivizes to an

environment influences in a way that provides and develops the interests of the learning

environment. No matter the outcome we must want be optimistic of any circumstance. Having a

connection, an agreement with one another is beneficial in order to continue building a

relationship with your student. The presence of support it signifies that there is always space for

improvement that it is ok to do mistakes. I want to be the one who is not afraid to do a mistake

as that is a fundamental of learning, learning from our own mistakes. I believe that every student

has their own unique way of learning, so not everyone learns the same way. Different strategies

will be utilized while the process of learning is happening. Each student will surpass the

challenges presented in the class, the key factors will be how well us as teachers present the

material. As Vygotsky states “what a child can do with assistance today she will be able to do by

herself tomorrow.” (Lindfors, 2008) To my understanding it is the social interaction the student

has while he or she is in their developmental growth.

Working and understanding the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) of a student is

beneficial to facilitate your classroom formative assessments. ZPD helps us as educators to better
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understand and improve our teaching methods to enhance and achieve the goals in learning. “We

can think of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as the difference between what a child can

do independently and what he or she is capable of doing with targeted assistance (scaffolding).”

(Lui, 2012) The student will have a unique style and way of learning, and we as teachers find this

often difficult to handle. It is challenging but not impossible to arrange different approaches that

we can use while teaching and emerging skills or strategies to help the student. The task provided

is based on where the student stands and what he or she is capable of doing. It will all depends

on their independence level of being able to perform individually. The other thing that will

becomes challenging is to determine the assistance for each individual and who needs to be

challenged to continue preforming and meeting the standards. “The concept of the ZPD was

originally established as a framework to describe the process of self-development.” (Lui, 2012)

My believes in teaching in the “zone” is the social interaction the student experience in a

classroom setting.

The social interaction is also something to take into consideration as they collaborate

with one another. The way the student is learning and socializing at the same time creates a

partnership that starts to grow in time. Students retain more information when they do activities

with one another this is because they are collaborating with each other and are socially active

allowing them to learn in their zone of proximal development. As Lindfors (2008) states “It is

about children moving into literacy in partnership with others”, it helps in the developmental

growth and build up their knowledge. The collaboration of different individuals allows the

development of language that the student can approach, as they become facilitators to the

students while learning. This is why it is important for teachers, parents, and guardians of a child

to work together and participate in the development growth. Together the opportunity of
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constructing ideas will be of great benefit. With scaffolding the student will be able to make

connections to a topic presented for example if the student and his family go camping every year

and in the class room we are talking and reading about the woods. The student will be making

connections of his previous experience. The schema that each individual has continues to build

up their comprehension and enhance their learning. Part of learning is the process it takes, it is an

active social process establish what a child can do. A “relationship between language and

thoughts as well as learning and play” (Lui, 2012) are big as the student develops in this journey.

This is when the students starts to scaffold as the teacher models and introduces material in an

interest, motivating way that appeals to the students. “Scaffolding to refer to the instructionally

supportive activities and social interactions that occur between the child and other individuals as

they guide effective learning and development in the ZDP.” (Lui, 2012) by using scaffolding we

can help with the student’s development. For example if I am planning to use maps and graphic

organizers throughout the school year, I will have to show and perform what I am looking for

when it comes to this activities. I will demonstrate the procedure and ways of how to fill up a

map for a few weeks. After several practices the student will know exactly what I am looking for

in his or her assignment. This is where we will see how the students at the beginning will be able

to complete a task by the seeing the performance of the teachers. As time goes on the students

will be able to complete and perform the task individually. Grownups and peers who are

involved in the development growth play an important role in the mediation of the child’s

growth.

My philosophy is that students follow the influence of what they see. We must be and

provide good examples for the students to learn from. Every year will be starting new, but this is

why I am becoming a teacher to continue learning while my students are learning. In general
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kids are full of knowledge and comprehend amazingly. At the end students learn from observing

and listening. By the end I want to be satisfied with the improvements the students have

accomplish and say “their comprehension is amazing they are ready.”

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References

Lindfors, J.W. (2008). Children’s Language. Connecting reading, writing, and talk. New York:

Teachers College Press

Lui, A. (2012). White Paper. Teaching in the Zone, p.1-10