TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
The sentence “Every child can learn” is the base of my teaching philosophy. I think that it is succeeded by appropriate teaching methods for each student’s individuality. However appropriate teaching methods are not enough alone, they should be supported with an environment where students is at center and express themselves.
I believe that every child is a unique individual. Children’s interest, skills, needs are different from each other. Individual differences affect students’ learning styles. Some students learn better from visuals, some learn better through social interaction, others learn better by hearing. As an educator, I think that the best teaching and learning environment can be created by taking students’ individual differences into consideration. Hence getting to know each student’s individuality comes to first place to be a good teacher for me. Furthermore I believe that by differentiating students’ individuality and designing dynamics of classes accordingly, lessons can be taught more effectively. Therefore in order to reach all students, lessons should be planned using differentiated instruction.
In my opinion, a good teacher is a person who teaches students how to learn rather than presenting information directly. Knowledge can be acquired not only in schools but also out of school. Therefore students should not be expected to take pre-packed knowledge and become dependent on teacher. On the contrary; students should be encouraged to investigate, inquire about the information and to be life-long learners. For this reason, I think that it is necessary to enhance lessons by activities improving students’ critical thinking and problem solving abilities. These activities should be chosen with respect to children’s cognitive development, which are neither too challenging nor too easy. On the other hand, teacher should be a person who shows children the way to reach knowledge and help them evaluate its truth on their own according to their interests. Thus my approach in teaching is to guide students rather than simply transfer information.
Mathematics is perceived to be a difficult and boring subject by most students. However its difficulty does not arise from its structure, I think it arises from its presentation or methods of teaching. Since mathematics is generally presented as theoretical information, it sometimes is seen just as a mass of numbers, operations and algorithms. Most students find mathematics too complex, abstract and they give up learning after a while since they think that the things they learnt will not benefit them in their life and they usually question when or where they use a mathematical concept. This shows that correlating mathematical concepts with real life helps students conceptualize the knowledge and lets them apply the knowledge in their lives. I believe that real life connections should be integrated in mathematics lesson, especially for more abstract topics such as limit, and derivative. Connection can be provided by real life problems, real life usage of the concepts, and even historical development of the concept.
As human beings we live in a technology age; current technology change rapidly. Children also grow up with technology and they are more interested in technology than most adults. I have observed that students are more willing to engage in a lesson when I used technological materials in my lessons. Thus, using technology as an instructional tool is one of the ways to make mathematics lesson more attractive. Furthermore mathematics is an appropriate discipline for integrating technology. It is helpful to visualize many mathematical concepts and thus it helps students learn mathematics. Hence as a mathematics teacher, I plan to use technology actively in my lessons and follow technological developments closely to present it to students in an effective way.
To sum up, for myself, teaching provides opportunity for continual learning. Hence one of my aims, as an educator is having my students develop a love of learning. For this reason I will dedicate myself to engage all my students in mathematics.