Teaching Philosophy

My students are participating in an impromptu speech activity. I have asked them to

choose the person they want to go next after they’ve completed their own speech. One of my
students completes his speech, points his finger at me, and grins. “You,” he says, glee lighting up
his face. The class giggles in unison and encourages me to the front of the room. Because
reciprocal participation is a primary tenant of my teaching philosophy, my students have
learned to expect and request my participation and reciprocity throughout the semester.
These acts of reciprocity serve several functions. First, they allow me to demonstrate
what I expect from my students in my assignments and class activities. Having immediate access
to examples of speeches, assignments and activities allows my students to have tangible
examples to reference. Secondly, my use of demonstrating course content gives me the
opportunity to bring personal narratives about myself into the classroom. Doing so cultivates
bravery, trust and connection with my students.
Another primary component of my teaching philosophy is a belief in multiple teaching
methods. I place primacy on recognizing students have multiple learning styles. Some students
do better writing their responses down, some do better in group work, and some are comfortable
participating in classroom discussions. I balance between these methods to allow all my students
to be fully able to participate. I also believe that a wide array of teaching methods disrupts the
potential for boredom and disinterest by giving students multiple means of engaging with the
course content. This makes being in the classroom exciting for both my students and me.
Crawley et al (2008) notes “An interactive classroom yields much more active results than a
lecture style-presentation and that students tend to learn more as a result of speaking the material
themselves and through testing each other’s opinions than they would if I were to speak at them”
(p. 15). I consciously construct my classroom in an interactive method to disrupt top-down
teaching methods. I believe my students have much to teach me, and each other, and use my
classroom as a space to welcome their input in a variety of ways.
My primary goal as a teacher is to move away from cold, impersonal teaching methods. I
bring as much as myself into the classroom as possible and want my students to do the same. My
use of reciprocal participation and multiple teaching methods allows for my students to connect
with myself and with each other. Through our connections with each other, we grow to respect
our classroom community, ultimately deepening our ability to learn together.

References
Crawley, S. L., Curry, H., Dumois-Sands, J., Tanner, C., & Wyker, C. (2008). Full-contact
pedagogy: Lecturing with questions and student-centered assignments as methods for
Inciting self-reflexivity for faculty and students. Feminist Teacher, (1), 13.