Teaching Philosophies

H Group 2014

Teaching Philosophies

1. Teaching Philosophy

Most people wonder why students need teachers to learn a something, but in my opinion teachers are influential in the lives of students to help them learn in a more efficient way. A good teacher should be well versed with the basics of the subject and should be able to explain them in a way everyone understands. They should be prepared to answer questions well without giving wrong information and should also build certain skills that a student would require outside of academics.

In biology it's a common misunderstanding that almost everyone can read and understand without the help of a teacher. But that is not the case; there is a lot to learn in biology, as it is a very complex and wide field, and it is also a field which is growing and changing every day. When I begin I generally start with basics. I like to use a lot of pictures and videos, especially to explain processes to make it more fun. I like to give occasional quizzes but they are fun group quizzes. During this time I like to gauge how different students pick up different topics so I can alter the way I explain a topic so everyone can understand better.

Apart from theory I would also like to concentrate on lab work, which is very important in order to work in this field. And for labwork it's important to read up before starting work. So I would give them a basic questionnaire to complete as homework before they start with any experiment. This will also build their skills as researchers. There is a lot of research going on in this field, so it's difficult to keep in check with significant developments in different sub fields in biology. So for this purpose it is necessary to be able to read, understand, summarize, present, compare and discuss various papers in a subject. This session is more interactive and is a group activities , and helps to build important skills and build confidence.   (Belinda Dcosta)

2. Teaching Philosophy

In my experience the teaching practice has always been about learning, to learn different ways in which your students acquire knowledge and new skills. As a music teacher you always have to struggle with different styles of learning, as every one of your students is a unique individual and one of the main challenges is to figure out the best way to teach them.

Secondly, I think a teacher should master the field of expertise that he/she is involved in and moreover stay updated in new techniques and developments, especially nowadays, when we can appreciate that technology is advancing in every direction at a very fast rate. Musical instruments and accessories are proof of this; today we must learn how to play instruments that have more precision and better response than twenty years ago. So I think, as a teacher, you have a commitment to all of this.

Music learning is all about self-awareness; students should always been monitoring their body, both physically and mentally. For instance, what movements are they doing? What do they feel? What are they doing while they are performing? And finally, make them realize that making music has nothing to do with an instrument, but is with their bodies. I always encourage my students to think, and to discover the answers by themselves, so they really absorb the lessons you are giving.

I think you have an enormous and direct responsibility working with a music student. If you ask me about my purpose of doing all of this, the answer is very simple; I do what I do because I want to contribute to the lives of my students, to make their lives easier at the same time that I make them challenge themselves, and the only way to make this happen is by working very hard and guiding them in all of the possible steps, always keeping in mind that wisdom and patience is your best tool for doing all of this. -Victor Coba

3. How to Become a Competent Teacher in Class

Teaching is an imperative way to enhance students themselves, and has played a significant role in education. From my perspective, teaching philosophy should cover three basic aspects including why to become a teacher, what a teacher teaches and how to convey information to students. To begin with, one should clearly know the motivations of being a teacher; for example, teaching makes great contributions to intellectual growth of students and provides various requisite skills for shaping them. Teachers should recognize that it is highly worthwhile to devote themselves to this kind of valuable job. Additionally, the specific content in the class should focus on what students could obtain and whether or not the objectives of courses are beneficial for them. As a result of this, teachers should get well prepared to illustrate the most useful knowledge in limited class time. Also, there is a wide range of efficient methods for teachers to apply in the class, like making complete planning for lessons, communicating with students effectively, maintaining a warm relationship with them and so forth. Meanwhile, any other various ideas and voices of students should be taken into consideration by teachers. Moreover, teachers are also required to expand their knowledge by engaging in the frontier educational activities or lectures. Thus, to some extent they are able to keep in touch with the latest technology in the world. Most importantly, teachers should encourage students to make full use of available resources to explore the unknown world. In that case, students are able to acquire knowledge independently, which will be an indispensable part of their future study lives. (Fuda Ning)

4. Teaching Philosophy - Music

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent (Victor Hugo).  As a music teacher one cannot only strive for meeting academic goals but one should also inspire students to be the ambassadors that will make our craft prevail in today’s world. Music is one of the most beautiful and personal ways to express ourselves, whether you are a performer or the person composing the piece.

I believe that the teaching process starts with a little bit of effort from the instructor to evidence how things should be done. This is why I want to be a positive role model for my students by setting up a good example not only as a passionate music teacher but also as a devoted music performer.

As an international student I have come to realize how important it is to become familiar with other cultures from all over the world and especially when it comes to performing music. It is vital that we portray the correct cultural background of a composer or composition whether by playing an instrument or using our own voice as one. As a teacher I will always encourage my students to expand their cultural diversity by going on study abroad programs and by mastering different languages as well.

During my college experience I realized I always learned the most when my music professors would not only teach me but also get me involved in the subject. Now that I find myself on the teaching side I have made it one of my goals to always engage the students in my class by developing a welcoming environment in which they can express themselves and use their creativity.

I believe that human beings have the ability to achieve any goals they set for themselves, and it is my job as an educator to prepare the younger generations with all the tools they may need to be successful individuals.  (Jessica Rosas)

5. Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy can be defined as a personal statement concerning our thoughts and practices about teaching. This means that there is a great variety of different ways of how to teach. I strongly believe that Teaching Philosophy is an integral part of the teaching process and it is connected not only with the transfer of knowledge to the students but also with the process of the improvement of our own skills as teachers.

As far as I am concerned, the teachers’ duty is to care about their students, to know what they need to learn, to inspire them and to make the discipline even more fascinating and interesting for them. So, the first and the most important responsibility of the teachers is to have their course well planned. There should be introduction to the topic, detailed analysis of the concept and then presentation of the chief conclusions. It is also significant to emphasize the main ideas and give various examples to explain these theories. 

Moreover, an effective classroom is the one that allows the students to open a productive dialogue with the teacher regarding the topic that is presented. I believe that an interactive course - where the teacher discusses with the students many aspects of a discipline or a concept - is much more interesting and effective. In this way students are able to understand in depth the key theories, more questions are raised, and as a consequence they gain much more information than they would by just listening to the teacher. Students have the chance to analyze their opinion and exhibit their arguments. This ultimately brings about the improvement of their critical thinking. Furthermore, a good teacher has to answer all students’ questions. In addition, it is significant that the students should be encouraged to ask about everything they do not understand.

After the presentation of the topic and the discussion, the use of quizzes and other educational methods of tests are valuable in order to make sure that students are able to identify the main concepts that were introduced before. By this method (practice in the classroom), the teacher makes sure that the students can summarize the most important points of each concept and they also display the key conclusions.

I have decided to use this teaching method during my work at TTU as teaching assistant in the department in Economics, because I think that it will help students to learn faster and more easily. (Antonia)

6. Teaching Philosophy

Teaching is conveying the knowledge to others' minds. Although people have desire to learn, one of the very boring things in the planet is attending classes willingly, and sitting and listening to a lecture. So a teacher should not only be knowledgeable enough to teach others but also should be able to perform and entertain his students. In order to get students' attention, a teacher should be able to teach interactively to get his students' attention, make them participate and even memorize every detail and understand the concept by heart.

I personally love to teach, because I think this is a method that I can use to help others with my knowledge and at the same time I will develop my knowledge and understanding much more than before. Teaching is a two-faced tool. One way, it helps the teacher to improve his weaknesses in the specific concept that is being taught, and in the other way it helps students to improve their career. Teaching requires a lot of preparation for the teacher that makes him develop his knowledge and gets the latest updates on the field. I personally spend three hours before any class, to update myself on new issued articles and books, along with reviewing the past references. 

I like to interact with my students and make them participate more in class activities. That is how I manage to handle my classes and get my students' attention. I invite them to contribute more, and ask them about their outlook on the subject that is going to be taught. I try to raise questions in their mind and make analogies for most of the abstract subjects based on their everyday lives to make it more tangible and easy to understand.

I also make use of social media to get the class connected to each other for sharing any new articles or new books, bringing up any question, and solving problems in the group. In this case, students interact more.

All in all, I believe being a teacher makes me be more giving, and feel more proud of what I am. I think teaching is an art of drawing people's attention and passing on your knowledge and skills and making students satisfied with what they have gained, which I am really good at.   (Saman) 

7. Teaching Philosophy

Learning a language is not only a question of integrating syntax, vocabulary and another enormous amount of linguistic tools. I would agree with the fact that those materials are necessary, but it won’t be a complete approach to the language in itself. Indeed, a language is set up in a specific context, and it represents one of the various components of one particular civilization. Language cannot be taught without providing a cultural perspective. As a consequence, it is essential for me to share with my students a cultural overview through discussions. Active participation and conversations are some tasks I ask my students to care about. I build up my lessons on anecdotes, stories and comparisons between different cultural practices, but at the same time I also provide important linguistic materials.  I apply this organization as many times as the class allows a room to do so but it is a priority to cover the program as well.

Why do I incorporate a lot of conversations and group activities in the classroom? The main reason is that learning from each other is one of the most important components in my work: we can grow up and become better human beings in sharing and listening to our life experiences. Therefore, I am convinced that the greatest feature of being a foreign language teacher is the opportunity of sharing every day our own culture and learning from other cultures. I have never conducted such deep analysis of my own culture as when I faced other societies.

Teaching is an exchange in which students have to interact as many times as the teacher does. However, students must be assessed as well as tested on their knowledge. Daily homework and weekly quizzes are a requirement which I might be very strict about. Learning a language is a daily practice and it should part of the student’s routine. I wonder if the perfect lesson exists and I do not pretend to have reached this perfection, I would rather focus my energy on creating a friendly and hard-working atmosphere in the classroom. Students and teachers have rights and responsibilities: if everybody respects this agreement, the class can be held properly.

Overall, I am an open-minded and tolerant person, involved in my duties and conscientious about student progress. Nevertheless, there is one thing which I cannot accept in my classroom: incivility. Beyond learning, attending school is also about how to behave in society, to respect others and to evolve with integrity in our environment. Politeness and honesty are two other elements I ask students to be aware of. Thus, I am dedicated to students who want to improve their skills, and expand their world, and I offer them all the help they need to achieve their goals. As a teacher, it is also my priority to make sure that all the students in my class can evolve step by step in their apprenticeship of the language. Finally, it is also part of my profession to prepare them for the adult world. I truly think this maturity can be gained through opening their eyes to different worlds, through learning other languages. (Emilie Mathis)

8. My Teaching Philosophy

To be frank, becoming a teacher was never an ambition that I had in my mind, even though now I find that I had been doing it ever since I was a kid. I can still remember copying certain example exercises from text books and preparing lessons out of them at the age of 8 years (I can hardly believe myself when I recall how I used carbon papers to make copies of my handouts at such a very young age! Maybe, my father helped me out there!). Whenever we got a break in class, I had a bunch of students coming to my sub-class (as I may call it!). I actually skipped my lunch to correct small quizes I gave in my class and I was clever enough to give the feedback to all my students by the end of the day, itself! Unfortunately, I just could not keep up with the growing number of students, so I had to give up! Being an Instructor in the field of Engineering in a prestigious university back home since 2010, I have found myself not just enjoying the idea of teaching, but I feel that ‘THIS IS WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED!".

 I can still recall myself going through the student feedback forms at the end of my very first teaching assignment as a teaching assistant back there, and I was delighted to see that most of the students had loved to see me again for their next semester (there was also a message which said that I should not wear ‘Kadjol’ in my eyes!). Since then, I have been having good feedback from students, peers and superiors, and I personally made it a point to develop further by updating myself continuously. Although my family was growing up after marriage, I kept on participating in conferences, workshops etc., to learn about state of art teaching techniques whilst working as a part-time tutor in a distance education program to be good at online teaching. I also worked as a visiting resource person for two organizations during my spare time in order to build up my network with industry, as I believe that experience is a must to properly orient your students towards the industry, especially in a field like Engineering. In fact, the six years of industry experience I had in the field really helped me with my engineering students back home. I have found that the students were fascinated on the sections taught on industry applications.

 I believe that people tend to devote themselves to things they love most, and I guess it goes same for me. Every time I get a teaching assignment, I put maximum effort into giving the best to my students. I try to incorporate knowledge, experience in field and technological skills to complete it and I always make it a point to get continuous feedback for further improving my future service. I really would like to see my students becoming super heroes and heroines in industry, so that when the time comes for me to sit back and relax, I can be happy about the fact that I have played my part well…. (C. Kalpani D.)

9. Teaching Philosophy

Talking about teaching philosophy, I would like to share my belief that a teacher should not only share the knowledge about the subject, but should give students an opportunity to experience a real problem or situation by using new information. I would like to be sure that after taking my class students will have a new useful tool in their hands and will be able to utilize it. Being in the field of Economics, I want my students to become more professional and look at the problems through the economic prospective.

The subjects of Economics contain a lot of theory, material and calculations. I know that in one semester students should handle a huge amount of information because they will have several subjects to learn. The teacher's ideal is when a hundred percent of given material will be obtained by students, but that it is impossible and not necessary. It is possible and I think very important to make students think critically and to stimulate them to analyze a situation trying to use new knowledge.

In my classroom I am not going to follow the textbook word by word; I will encourage students to read a chapter before class. I also do not want to spend so much time writing main concepts and determinations on a blackboard. They will be provided after each class in power point slides. During the class I would like to discuss with my students their readings and make them participate as much as possible. To be sure that my students follow the lesson, I am going to show different examples of where and how that or another concept can be met in real life.

All people are lazy in their nature and try to avoid difficulties if possible. Even good students tend to procrastinate in their study, if there are no clear requirements.  I am ready to lose some points in my student’s evaluation, but I am going to challenge them with homework assignments, quizzes and exams. I think homework is necessary, since it makes students review the material, questions them and makes them think. Results of small five minute quizzes about the finished material will show the picture of overall understanding. That will give me some clues about the auditory presentation and how should I work on my performance. Also it will stimulate students to work harder and be better prepared for exams. Several exams during semester will give students the opportunity to improve their grade if for some reason they fail one of them. My students should work hard, but they will be awarded. (Natalia)

10. Teaching Philosophy

 As I am a physics graduate student, most of my teaching is going to be on introductory physics courses for undergraduate students and physics laboratories. First of all, most of the students in these classes come from different departments and physics isn’t going to be the most important class they are taking. But as a physicist I believe that an educated person should understand some basic principles of how the world works; it opens a wide variety of interesting topics to study and helps in everyday life. In other words, one of the goals of my teaching is to interest people that are not motivated to study physics.

From my experience, the first step is to make students understand the teacher; even though physics can be an extremely complicated subject, my entire purpose in the classroom is to make it easy to understand and enlightening to my students. Even though I’m studying to be an expert in my field, I’ll likely make mistakes in simple issues and will gladly be corrected by my students. In fact, I believe that making mistakes in unimportant calculations helps the teacher understand if the students are interested and if they are paying attention.

So my teaching style can be mostly described as explaining the topic briefly and moving on to solving the problems on this topic that seem interesting or challenging. Normally I ask one of the students to do an example for the rest of the class. That usually helps the students to keep focused even if the topic seems to be stressful – they understand that they can do it anyway. Learning by working on the problem helps students understand the topic instead of just memorizing the pattern the teacher wrote. Students shouldn’t learn what the right answer is, but how to get it, how the equations work, and how to solve similar problems for themselves. My fear is that if I write out the equations, they may just copy my work or take a picture and go home, instead of absorbing the philosophies of what we’re covering in class and truly incorporating it into their knowledge. For the same reason I don’t use presentations in my classes – a hard science like physics may be scary at first, so the students need to make the first step in and try to do the examples instead of just looking at them.

I’ll also likely give regular quizzes, because they help students to find out what they don’t understand. Regular quizzes will also tell me what I need to concentrate on, or what I might not have previously explained well enough. I’ll give the quizzes just as extra credit, so if students don’t get answers right it doesn’t hurt them. This will also encourage students to come to class regularly, and show that I’m only there to help them.

I’d summarize my teaching philosophy as motivating students who may not have a natural interest in physics , humanizing physics, ensuring students learn how to think at least a little bit like physicists do about the world, and reminding students that I’m only there to help them. (Alexandra)

11. Teaching Philosophy

Coming from a background that taught me about how man evolved from apes due to evolutionary changes and genetic modifications makes me look at life in a different perspective. The never-ending growth and development in the field of science has always made me question everything the world has to offer. I only grew fonder of biology because of my teacher, without whom I wouldn’t know half of what I do today. She is my inspiration behind my teaching approaches, and I would love to share the same experience with my students.

I believe that sharing knowledge is the best gift that man has to offer. All students have their own level of understanding and thought processing. My approach is to understand each student individually and cater to each one's needs. Firstly, checking on the knowledge of the students as to how well they are familiar with a topic is key. This gives you a brief idea as to how to approach the concept. Secondly, explaining the concept with figures is my best way to grab their attention. Asking questions about a term in between the lecture helps me understand their strengths and weaknesses and aids me to focus on what they are lacking. Also, I strongly feel the necessity to encourage a student to always be willing to ask questions or clarify their problems as it helps build a strong relationship with them. I would be readily available to always help them. I personally feel practical exposure is the best learning experience for any student. Being able to do an experiment by themselves is far better than being told what to do. Having a short quiz before every class on the previous lecture will help me evaluate the students and also how well they have understood the topic that was taught. This also helps them prepare well ahead of their final exam. Video demonstrations of different mechanisms, enzyme activities, and life cycles will also help them develop a clear idea about the topic. Group presentations and assigning a role for every member in the group for the presentation will help students share each other’s ideas and improve their performance during collaborations in the future. 

I emphasize the students' being able to analyze and perform experiments on their own with my guidance as it would help them develop their thought processing skills. Lastly, it is always important to have an interactive and lively atmosphere in the classroom. I want my students to enjoy what they learn and benefit from this class.  (Twaritha Vijay)

12. Teaching Philosophy

In the realm of education and learning, sports, wellness and physical education are often considered to be on a lower tier in relation to other subjects and topics such as English, Mathematics, and the Sciences. More often than not, the common belief is that sports and physical education is meant only for the physically gifted and those with the innate athletic ability that is required to excel. My role as a teacher is to create an opportunity for all students, regardless of skill level or athletic ability, to experience and enjoy sports and physical activity. I will welcome the challenges brought about by teaching anyone who wants to learn, from the novice level who need to master the fundamentals of movement and motor behavior, to the more advanced level who prefer to focus on the more technical and strategic aspects of physical activities. I would like to facilitate activities that could increase a person’s interest in becoming more active and leading a healthy lifestyle. I want to be able to demonstrate both the general motor skills and the more sport-specific skills or techniques that will allow the students to pursue sports and physical activity on their own.

Giving lectures explaining the ideas and concepts behind movement and following routines for drills or exercises have always been a part of teaching physical education. However, I believe that allotting more time for free play, once the theories have been explained and the fundamentals have been practiced, provides more benefits to the students. Starting each class with a brief introduction of the underlying principles of the movements and drills will help the students to have a better understanding of what exactly each motion does to help the body and how it can affect performance. The customary drills are there to have a form of standardized learning wherein the students will all get the opportunity to formally practice the movements and actions in a controlled setting before being subjected to more extrinsic variables. The majority of the time will be allocated to small scale games and situational exercises that can mimic real life situations. The rationale behind a more game-based approach is to entice the students to become more active without the restrictions of following an unchanging series of drills every time. I am a firm believer in the notion that allowing more freedom when it comes to learning sports and physical activity will help the students to choose what their lifetime sport will be. In other words, teaching the basic motor skills and exposing them to a variety of sports while still maintaining the allure of fun and free play is the best way to motivate students to actively participate in class.

In order to have a clearer picture of whether or not the students taking the class have been able to learn anything, I will still utilize a series of simple skill tests. These skill tests will be modified versions of the drills that they already did during class. The addition of variables such as stationary obstacles, time limits, or even a defender or practice opponent, can be useful in gauging how well the students have mastered the basic skills. Due to the more activity-based nature of the course, I will refrain from giving written quizzes, except for those that can be to check on the students’ understanding of rules or concepts related to the sports or movement patterns. I would also encourage the idea of using tournaments and organized competitions to see the students apply the skills they learned in the actual sport setting.

In the end, I want to be able to give the students an opportunity to experience the joys of sports and physical education. I want them to forget about the stereotypes of athletes or the ridiculous notion that only athletically gifted people play sports. The true goal I want my students to reach is to simply enjoy playing. I would like to think that my class would be the gateway for students to become more health conscious and start engaging in a physically active lifestyle. The class could be considered successful if even one student decides to pursue a particular sport or continue to train and exercise on a regular basis once the course is finished.  (Miguel Gavino)

13. Teaching Philosophy

When I was surprisingly given an assignment as a laboratory assistant in my senior time when I was an undergraduate student, I had no idea how to teach properly, I just thought that the experience would probably benefit my CV. My job description was to give more technical explanations about how to understand econometrics in practice. Econometrics is the most important tools for the students to finish their mini thesis. I had already finished mine, was only waiting for the defense, and still I had to wonder how to deliver such abundant important information to students as so they would not easily forget. All my students were smart and curious and also were an active group; this gets tricky because they thought I must be smarter than them. I feared misleading them, but I gave myself a grip through a question; "If you were a student yourself, how would you want to be taught?" and I started from there. When I finished my assignment (it was a two-year assignment), I had gained progress semester by semester; the first year was tough, but when I reached my last year,  the students were giving me the highest evaluation grades, and also, their grades were reported as the best in their regular class.

To me, the most important part of teaching is how to make the materials easy to remember. Since Economics is knowledge about human behavior, it is not easy to make students understand. The basic parts of Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and their applications are the hardest even for a PhD level. However, I always remember that through practice, we can make our way. Weekly homework, quizzes, essays and regular class attendance are important; however, beside these things, the  most important is the student's motivation to study, and it is not through punishment or humiliation for their inscience, it starts from the teacher's understanding that no knowledge is easy and delivering it through patience. It is okay to try to comply to the syllabus, but in my point of view, a student's understanding is the most prominent goal in teaching. I believe in motivating them through thorough material, good and readable points on the board, a short review of last class every before starting a class, feedback on the exam result and giving them short break every hour. Also, my readiness to give them a proper extra office hour to answer their questions and the usage of more updated technology to help them in the process is to be allowed, of course in a responsible way.

Saying I was a Lab assistant is probably not an elegant way to say that I have experience teaching; however, it was also the best time in my life; I can call it a life changing experience. Through two years I finally found that teaching is a passion rather than a vacancy; it is a decision in my life that if I am going to be an Economics researcher, teaching is the best way to develop my skill, because I have to keep studying to teach my students something. I have to keep studying in order to deliver Economics to students in the best way. I will have to do research in order to develop my curiousity. I will have to keep my hard work up so my students will work hard too.  I started as an inexperienced teacher, and became a continuously learning teacher. and I am happy with the process. I believe only through this philosophy, college can bring forth amazing students throughout the years.  (Eva Nurwita)

14. Philosophy of teaching

Undoubtedly, education plays an important role in the progression of an individual’s skills. In other words, learning is a significant factor which should be taken under consideration. From the first day of school when we academically began to learn, we have had various experiences with different instructors and teachers.  Therefore, we have different feelings and memories from that time. Some of these memories are about teachers that leave an undeniable impact on our learning .We can never  forget their effective role in our education.

Teachers play an important role in education. I believe capability of learning is highly dependent on the effectiveness of teaching methods and teachings that are used or exploited by the teacher.

As an instructor, my focus  and my teaching strategies are based on students' learning. Someone interested in pedagogy has to take into account which factors have a decisive impact on learning. One factor is the interaction between instructors and students. I find this factor important in terms of significant progression in learning. It  emphasizes the importance of  student understanding and the quality of my instruction. Therefore, my primary role as an instructor is to create an interaction which develops an interest and motivates students for learning.

As a result, I try to communicate with my students and ask them to tell me their expectations and desires. I believe good communication is another important factor which should be considered. In this regard, I try to develop my assignments in a way that they can be adapted to students' needs and expectations. Hence, I encourage my learners to participate in discussions and give their ideas about the syllabus. I encourage them to think about the work of art that they created and I want them to talk about their interests and ideas. Therefore, students are not only thinking about creating art, but also verbally expressing their ideas reading their own art works as well as others.

Another item that I believe could be effective in terms of improving student learning is the passion and enthusiasm that the instructor has regarding the subject. For instance, while a teacher explains and demonstrates a subject with great passion and interest, definitely, he can motivate students through his/her enthusiasm for the subject. This could be a great inspiration in terms of students’ success.

I find creativity an important item for learning art. I encourage my students to experience new ways to  think about their art work. In this way they will find their own voice by experiencing and discovering items.

Finally, my attempt is to assist students to expand their knowledge as well as develop their ideas in regard to reaching  their artistic goals and being successful in their lives. (Kaveh Rafie)

15. Teaching Philosophy

I believe that not everybody can be a teacher; it requires patience, skills, knowledge, personality and the will to teach a person from any walk of life. If I am chosen to be a teacher, I would be teaching the undergraduate courses to students who have just finished high school, or some returning to school after working in the field for years. Some of my students will be totally unfamiliar with the subject while some would know it in depth, having experienced it. My teaching philosophy is to make sure that the students who know nothing gain the most from my teaching and the ones who know most walk out gaining something from the class.

I believe teaching this diverse group would be a challenge, but I am willing to take it head first. Good teachers need to be patient and should be flexible with the student’s capability to understand. They should be able to understand the questions being posed and answer them; they should also be willing to admit not knowing an answer rather than providing incorrect infomation. I feel that anyone can be a teacher with training, but the will to teach with training is what makes you a good teacher.

The teacher should have sound knowledge of the subject. At the same time a teacher should have command of the language to efficiently communicate with the students. The personalities of teachers hold importance too; they have the ability to influence a person’s life. A teacher is the leader of a class. Students should respect teachers and at the same time should be able to approach their teachers with queries. A good teacher can produce good technologically sound citizens from the students in the classroom. I don’t plan to make attendance compulsory but I will make sure students would not want to miss my class. (Patil)

16. Teaching Philosophy

Political Science is such an area that takes a lot of efforts to teach. It is very specific, unique and has many “reefs” that need to be taken into account. When teaching Political Science there are three things that I would include into my teaching philosophy.

One of the most important things I would teach in my classes is critical thinking.  It is not a surprise that today’s newspapers turn the truth in any direction they are interested in. That is why it is extremely important not to take all the news in all good faith. In order to be good in Political Science, a student should read a lot of articles from different countries in order to understand what is true and what is not. This is the first thing my students would learn in my classes.

Second, I would definitely involve training in public speaking. People usually tend to underestimate the power of the word. The person that has the word in control could, in fact, rule the world. If students know public speaking, they will definitely be much more successful.

Third, I believe that the professionalism of a teacher is something that influences students extremely. To my mind, the teacher should be friendly, but should never be unprofessional or incompetent. I believe that the number one aim for all teachers is to be a role model for their students. If a teacher is organized and disciplined, and has authority or influence in the field, the students will be interested in visiting his lectures, asking questions and interacting in many ways. Few things motivate students as strongly as having a mentor that can be a role model in their field of study, an example of a great intellect and cordiality. A good teacher is the teacher whose aim is to make students surpass his own achievements. (Masha)
 
17. Teaching Philosophy

Teaching philosophy is the philosophy of a teacher in order to teach students in an efficient and productive way. Now in this philosophy, one can keep on improving by adding more efficient tools and ways that cater to the needs of students in this challenging world of ever growing technology. So knowledge should be transferred from teacher to students in the best possible way. Not only this, but that particular knowledge should have all the excitement to grasp the attention of students so that they start enjoying the lecture to its very last second.

When I started teaching, it was a very challenging experience first, but I started to learn and adapt myself according to the teaching environment. With time I learned many new techniques; by now, having experience of four years at different universities has made me versatile in my teaching. Every new place has to offer me something new to learn and that always helps me in my teaching and has improved my teaching skills. So teaching and learning is a never-ending process.

When you are teaching a class of forty to fifty students at the undergraduate level, the first and the foremost thing a teacher has to keep in mind is to tactfully deliver the lecture so that their attention is totally grasped by the students and they are with the teacher at each and every moment of the class, not finding it boring or a never-ending class. For this basic fact, a teacher can use many tools, thanks to the technology, as it offers many new ways to learn and deliver lectures on broader aspects for better understanding. In the field of physics, while explaining theory, one always needs to relate it with some visual aspect, or give some examples. Now multimedia and other visual tools help the student to understand that particular theory with a good visual example, which otherwise could not be shown. Theory is always related to experiments, so in my class of physics I make sure that I am relating the theory with the experimental aspect of it in labs so that students can relate both the things with each other. Numerical based problems are very challenging for students, so the best way is to solve them as much as we can; this increases the ability of students to solve and find solutions while keeping all dimensions of that problem in mind.

Assignments and quizzes are good for assessment of students; it helps them prepare lectures on time and be prepared for the next class. Group assignments and presentations help students built up their confidence and present their ideas. I also recommend that students join some online scientific communities or groups; this is very effective learning way for students. They can interact with many other people, share ideas and thoughts and work on something that they find interesting. This builds their research skills. (Hira Farooq)