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Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
Dana Rochelle
I believe that…
Each student is unique and therefore deserves a unique education tailored to his or
her own strengths and needs.
As a teacher, it is my duty to both challenge and support students according to their strengths
and needs to help them reach their full potential. I pre-assess students to gauge the instruction
they need and I modify lessons and assignments accordingly. I engage in various formative
assessments, providing multiple opportunities for students to communicate their knowledge
and demonstrate their understanding. Finally, I create summative assessments that are
considerate of individual strengths and needs.
Students learn best when provided the opportunity to explore, discover, discuss and
practice skills in authentic situations.
Students are naturally curious. They are filled with wonder and intrigue about the world
around them. Education is not the distribution of content knowledge from teacher to student,
but rather a journey of learning through the process of exploration. My instructional methods
allow students to be active contributors in the classroom and take responsibility for their own
learning. Hands-on, authentic activities and meaningful classroom discussion are essential
pieces of student exploration. There are two elements that I believe are conducive to effective
student exploration, (1) the teacher acting as a guide, and (2) allowing the child’s
natural curiosity to direct his/her learning. When the teacher’s role is to guide, providing access
to information rather than acting as the primary source of information, the students’ search for
knowledge is met as they learn to find answers to their questions. For students to construct
knowledge, they need the opportunity to discover for themselves and practice skills in
authentic situations. Providing student’s access to hands-on activities and allowing adequate
time and space to use materials that reinforce the lesson being studied creates an opportunity
for individual discovery and construction of knowledge to occur.
Students need a secure, caring, and stimulating atmosphere in which to grow and mature
emotionally, intellectually, physically, and socially. By tailoring each lesson and assignment to
student’s individual strengths and needs, providing rich activities that are meaningful and
relevant to student’s lives and interests, and allowing students to generate ideas and set goals
for themselves, their work will have purpose. When students take responsibility for their own
learning, boredom and frustration are alleviated and thus, there is less off-task behavior.
Developing a curriculum around student interests fosters intrinsic motivation and stimulates
the passion to learn.