Teaching Philosophies

10. Teaching Philosophy

 Unlike other jobs, being a teacher requires different qualifications. There are many theories that explain how to be a good teacher. As a business student who may teach in the future, I would like to keep up with the times and try to be understanding to the students.

  If we want to face the truth, we need to accept the fact most of the students never enjoy their class. Unfortunately, counting the minutes might be more interesting than listening to the teacher. At that time, the teacher needs to get their attention. If I was a teacher, I would talk about the trend topics that all students take interest in. Since the contents of business area change every day, I would like to read about the news with the students in order to ensure they are familiar with what is going on in today’s society. I would choose one of the companies, for example Apple or Samsung, and also talk about their strategies that they would use in marketing class. Also I am very sure that most of the students will enjoy talking about the income of World Cup in the finance class. 

  Obviously, we can not follow news without using technology these days. I would like to allow my students to use their laptop to access internet for reading news. Also using power point slide show makes the class more enjoyable. People will most likely forget what they hear, but it is hard to forget what they see. 

  On the other hand, I believe that a student who is majoring in business needs to learn how to be a good businessman/businesswoman. Sometimes theoretical information means nothing in a real company. In that case I would assign my students projects in which they have a chance to see how things work in a company, so that they can gain experience before they work. There is something else that I will always remind myself; every student has different experience. Some of them may have never worked before, so they need to know which behaviors would be appropriate at the interview. I would like to teach them how to be a good employee. 

  In conclusion, there are certain things that every teacher should do and should not, but it depends on the teacher. I would be a teacher who tries to make class more enjoyable and be helpful to the students. But in the end we need to take into consideration that every person has different personalities, so that every teacher lead to exhibit different strategies of teaching. (-Kubra Nur Aric)

9. Teaching Philosophy

    I am a visiting scholar in Chemical Engineering. I am a lecturer in Shanghai Sports Institute. I teach Exercise Physiology andTraditional Chinese Medical Massage. I am proud of my students, since they are elite athletes in Shanghai; some of them are members of national team. When it comes to the national sports competition, I always watch them on the TV and am touched by their fighting spirit.

    I love my job very much, because I am a sports fan and love my students. Moreover, I impart knowledge to them and make them know more about sports science, which helps them run the scientific training and reduce the injury frequency. For example, I tell them the theory of altitude training in the exercise physiology class, so that they do not reject altitude training and know that altitude training increases the number of red blood cells so that their aerobic ability is improved. In addition, they learn the methods to remove fatigue in the traditional Chinese medical massage class; these methods are useful for them.

    I not only use the blackboard to write, but also use the multi-media to teach, so that the class is not boring. I hope my students love my class, and want to make friends with my students; sometimes I share some interesting things with them and tell them my hobby or opinion about recent events. Moreover, I will ask my students questions to make them think and discuss things. Only in this way can I be close to my students. I believe a good relationship between teacher and students is beneficial for teaching.

    With regard to the assessment, I will observe the learning attitude of the students and the performance in the class. Furthermore, I will give a writing examination to my students.

    To be a good teacher, I think responsibility and wide knowledge are very important. Moreover, the presentation skill plays a vital role in the teaching process. A teacher should make students understand some rare theory. It is difficult to use simple words to explain the profound principle.

    In a word, I am very glad to be a teacher.  (-Xue Zhang)

8. Teaching Philosophy – Design

Before starting my graduate studies, I had never thought I would want to be a teacher. I used to be a good student of Industrial Design during my bachelor’s days and a good designer at work. However, after around five years of working as an interior and furniture designer, I started questioning my career. Since I was not happy with trying to satisfy wealthy clients’ desire to have more stylish life anymore, I decided to continue my education to explore other opportunities for making bigger changes in the world. Today, I feel I am doing a more rewarding job by doing research on the effect of environment on people’s health and learning how to share my knowledge with a younger generation. It is my intention to help my students experience the same feeling.

The first step will be broadening students’ perceptions of their major. I am responsible for helping them develop problem-solving skills and learn how to apply their skills to real problem situations. Instead of giving them ineffective assignments such as designing a fancy chair for a chief executive officer, I will assign them to design mobile learning devices for children in undeveloped regions, toilets that consume less water, chairs for disabled pilots, and toys and games that encourage children to do more physical activity. Class discussions will give them the opportunity to share their ideas and look at the world problems from different perspectives. They will also learn how to cooperate with other experts in their future careers to arrive at optimal solutions.

In the process of finding solutions and sharing opinions, I will challenge them to identify the areas where they can improve. I will also expose them to exemplary works by design-driven companies and ask them to evaluate those works. I will provide an environment where students can think loudly about outcomes of socially-responsible design versus unsustainable design, even if the second group is created by well-known and admired companies.

As for assessment, I am a proponent of using a variety of methods including class participation, presentations, quizzes, and writing assignments. While I have high expectations for my students, I also expect myself to be responsive to all questions, both in person and through e-mail, in a timely manner. I should also update my knowledge of the discipline and teaching tools to be able to assist students with all their needs. It is my hope that at the end of each semester, students leave my class knowing what it means to be responsible, competent, and productive citizens. -Shabboo Valipoor

7. Teaching Philosophy: Self confidence

    Each teacher needs a teaching philosophy to help him/her to teach students better. Each teacher has his/her own opinion regarding with teaching philosophy. For example, some teachers think teaching students critical thinking is important. In contrast, some teachers think using technology to help to catch the attentions of students is also important. However, in my opinion, helping students to establish their self-confidence is the most important.

    Self-confidence has a critical influence on the success of students. If a student does not believe in himself/herself, how does he/she make others believe him/her? In other words, a student does not have confidence, and in return others naturally do not believe him/her. A student could miss a good opportunity to be successful, since others do not trust in him/her. On the other hand, if a student has confidence, his/her confidence will have a great impact on others and easily allow others to follow him/her. At this moment, he/she could get a good opportunity to be successful because everyone believes him/her. For example, there was a young and great emperor in the Ting Dynasty of China called Kangxi Emperor. He was supported to be an emperor of China when he just was eight years old. At the beginning, he was inferior. He was afraid of making any decision because he thought he could not take the corresponding responsibility of dealing with state affairs. As a result his country was in a struggle because many good policies could not be implemented without his agreement. At this moment, his grandma had a meaningful meeting with him. In this meeting, his grandma told him that he should deal with state affairs following his heart and encouraged him to be more confident about himself. After that, the Kangxi Emperor became confident and started to learn how to manage such a big country. Several years later, the country became prosperous again. He finally became one of the greatest wise emperors in Chinese history. If you want to be successful, you should catch any opportunity you have. If you want to get the opportunities, you should be confident and believe yourself. For students, only when they have their own confidence from their heart can it be possible for them to make big contributions to their family, society and country in the future.

    Self-confidence can also help students to identify themselves and develop their positive attitudes to their lives. Self-confidence can help students to tell them what’s meaningful when they live in this world. This can help students to develop their positive viewpoints towards the society and the world. Recently, there were several sad events in which several young students killed themselves because they did not know why they were alive. I think one of the reasons is that they lack confidence. When students are self-confident, it is easy for them to make friends with others. If they have a good friendship to share their feelings, the possibility of their suicides greatly decreases. For instance, I had a best friend when I was a pupil. His father and mother divorced when he was four years old. He always looked very sad and wanted to kill himself. When we became friends, I often encouraged him to be more self-confident. Later, he started to learn music. In the music, he began to find himself and identify himself. Now he is a famous musician in my hometown. What’s more important is that he has a positive attitude toward his life now. Helping the students to develop their self-confidence is very important nowadays because the modern society is very completive. Every student has a high possibility to be compared with others. This comparison always makes students feel very frustrated because they are always compared with the better ones. In all, teachers should help students to build their self-confidence when they are young. (-Feixiong Luo)

6. Teaching Philosophy

As a geography teacher for more than six years in China, I developed my own teaching philosophy. It has been updated since I become a teaching assistant of Geoscience department, Texas Tech University (TTU). My teaching philosophy can be summarized in three points.

First, the goal of education is to teach students methods, not just knowledge. Knowledge obtained from teacher is limited in school, but students can learn knowledge by themselves using methods in everyday life. In China, due to a huge population it is fiercely competitive in entering good universities, colleges, and even high/middle schools. The only evaluation criterion for admission qualification is score of various examinations. Consequently, most Chinese teachers use a “cramming” teaching method, which is to make students remember as much knowledge as possible. The result of such teaching method is that students forget almost everything after taking examinations. This teaching method is meaningless except for obtaining an admission qualification. Oppositely, I change my teaching style in the United States (U.S.) due to relatively less stress on obtaining admission qualification. My classes are always designed with many activities. Students are encouraged to participate in these activities. In these activities students try to explore their own methods to solve problems. For example, students had an experiment to test the temperature change speed when heating and cooling sand, water, mud, and asphalt. Through this experiment students got a very comprehensive understanding of the albedo differences between different materials. Also, after the experiment they explore the reason why on beach sand temperature is much higher than water in summer.

Second, the training of creative and critical thinking is an essential part of education. People with highly creative and critical thinking abilities are more competitive in modern society. For example, interviewees were asked how to increase sales of toothpaste in an interview for sales manager. Most of them used complex economic theories. The answer of the person who finally got the position was just to increase by 1mm the caliber of toothpaste. Since Chinese teachers spend the whole classes telling students knowledge, students do not have any time to think. Such cramming education inhibits the development of students’ creative and critical thinking. Conversely, American teachers provide more opportunities for students to talk about their opinions, ask questions, and even query teachers’ views. Although Chinese students can get very high score in various examinations, no one wins the Nobel Science Prize in Science. China has lots of good students but few geniuses. Thus, I encourage students to discuss in groups, represent their opinions, and question me in class.

Third, creating a comfortable environment is the precondition for the training of creative and critical thinking abilities. Such comfortable environment is based on respect instead of fear. In China, students seldom point out teachers’ mistakes because they are afraid of making their teachers embarrassed. In America, teachers and students are equal in class. Teachers are common people but not authorities. Students who find teachers’ mistakes are always praised. Actually, teachers and students both improve quickly through questioning each other reasonably. Consequently, I try my best to make a positive environment in my class. I create a policy that students who find my mistakes in class can get a bonus in their final exams.

Finally, teachers should keep improving personal teaching skills, becoming more and more knowledgeable, and updating teaching philosophy in mind all the time. -Ying Liu

5. Teaching Philosophy

    The process of teaching is a joint operation between a professor and students. They must be associated with the educational process to get the success of the education. The teaching philosophy should allow students to acquire skills and knowledge that will help them in their lives. I will try to discuss the subject of teaching philosophy in two sides, one the side of professor and the other the side of students.

    The professor is a practical guide to the learning process. He can control and care about his class to take it to the way of success. There are certain important points which the professor should use with his students. The professor should encourage his students to discuss inside the classroom; this strategy will help the students to be involved in their ideas with each other. In addition, a big issue that usually happens inside some classrooms is when the professor shatters one of his students in front of others, because this behavior may cause his student to fail in his learning.

    On the other side, the students have duties to the educational process. All students should respect their professor and their classmates inside the classroom. Also, they should work hard with their professor and bring all assignments which the professor requests them without delay.

    Finally, teaching is joint interaction between professor and students. All of them have rights and duties to the teaching process. Each one should do his work faithfully to complete the educational process. (-Fahad AlMutlaq)

4. Teaching Philosophy

    Teaching in general is not just staying in front of the people and talking. Also it’s not only about how much you know. Teaching is more how you can transmit the information to other people in the way that they can learn and enjoy what they are learning. However, being a good teacher is a complex issue where there are features in how you teach and what you do. If you use too much information, maybe students didn’t take it all; but if you make an “easy” course, students don’t take the course seriously. Also it’s very important how much you prepare yourself to teach. I think there is no more annoying thing than having a professor that is disorganized in a class. That’s why, maybe one of the most important features for me of being a good teacher is always being prepared for a class (topics, lectures, technology, tasks, etc.).

    Teaching biology and ecology for undergraduate and graduate students should be a nice experience for most of the students. Most of the classes in ecology, for example, are really specific and most of the people take those classes because they like the topic and not because they have to. Keeping this in mind, it’s important that the teacher encourage students to go further and be proactive. Critical thinking is one of the most important issues in our field. The teacher should try to get the students to learn to think more than just copy what is on the board or in the book. There is so much information in science that students must learn, but this information is always in books, papers and online. It is really important to have a balance between how much people have to memorize and how they can find this information if they need it, and of course how to apply it in the real world. All in science is about how you can apply years of knowledge developing new ideas and new approaches, and try to know better our world, our reality.

    The technology issue has two sides in this field. The first is the tools that we can use to interact with students. The use of social media, blogs, and different applications to make learning easier for the students is welcome and maybe it is a good way to make students involved in the class. However, the most important use of technology in science is in terms of new software, new machines and new procedures, and is just as important as the theory of the class. Nowadays, no one can write a paper in ecology without statistical analysis just with specialized software you can use. One of the most important issues in my courses will be teaching how to use this software and making people competent to work with this software in as many fields as they can.

    About assessment I think I’m and old school teacher. I like the traditional exam, because it is an easy way to evaluate and measure how much the students learnt. However, I’m a big fan of mixing these traditional exams with more didactic assessment, for example making models, or relating some theory with a different topic. This kind of assessment lets the students be more creative and brings closer the reality beyond a book.

    Finally, interactions with students must be as strong as they can be. I think that maybe the most important issue is that students can ask you and be confident that they can be wrong. Also it is important as a teacher to recognize that you don’t know everything, and when you don’t know, say it and try to get the answer next time. This is how students can see that you’re not perfect, but you are interested in making things better. (-Maria Cristina Rios Blanco)

3. Teaching Philosophy

In the landscape architecture major, there are three kinds of course types: design courses, technical courses and verbal courses. In my view, each of them requires different teaching approaches.

    Design courses are suitable for landscape architecture students; however, other design-based major students (i.e. architecture, interior design) could attend these courses. Design classes require critical thinking, problem solving, and knowledge of drawing software (auto CAD, GIS, Photoshop etc.) from students. In these classes, students should work on a design project the whole semester, and they follow certain design processes, which are observations, site visits and analyses, conceptual design, first draft master plan and final master plan.  In my view, design classes should be student-centered. Instructors should be a supporting force for students. In order to introduce students to the design theories and processes, there should be a one hour lecture each class day before the studio/lab working time. These lectures should be the only time the instructor leads the course. In the lab hours, students should work on their design projects as they wish and the instructor should give them desk criticism every class day. That way, students can learn the theories very well in lectures, and they can be productive in the lab hours. Students should be encouraged by the instructor to use the drawing software while they are producing their design projects. In one semester there should be one preliminary presentation and one final presentation of the projects, so that the instructor can evaluate students' work and grade them. The contribution of the students should be considered an important part of their grade also.

    The technical courses include materials and details courses, and grading and drainage courses. These courses could require some mathematical and geometrical work. There are some formulas and equations used as well as theoretical knowledge in the grading and drainage course. In my opinion, this kind of courses should be both instructor-centered and student-centered. The instructor has to teach the theories and formulas to the students; therefore, students can work on their grading projects. This class format, like that of the design classes, must have lecture hours and lab hours. In the lecture hours the instructor should teach the formulas and rules; in the lab hours, students should work on the assignments provided by the instructor. While the instructor is helping students on their assignments, students should help each other while working on the assignments. From my point of view, students learn better by helping each other in classroom. In this course type, learning the course content should be the student’s first concern, not the grade. Therefore, the assignments that are provided in classroom should have the highest percentage of the final grade; therefore, the class participation and attendance have a significant role on these course types. An open book midterm exam and a final project would provide the rest of the percentage of grade. These types of classes are more preferred to teach by me.

    Verbal classes consist of history classes. For example, the history of landscape architecture course could be useful for landscape architecture students, architecture students, and even maybe art history students. These type of classes should be instructor-centered. Lectures should be given on each class day by the instructor. As a midterm assignment, students can make presentations about different historical projects and a final exam would generate a student’s final grade. (-Serdar Kaleli)

2. My Teaching Philosophy

    My teaching philosophy is something that has been developing over several years as my teaching experience grows.  Through a few years of experience and a lot of trial and error, I’ve learned that the job of a language teacher isn’t really to teach, in the traditional sense.  Language teachers should be class facilitators.

As a language-learning facilitator, I don’t believe that my job is to dispense information to students.  I’m not the key master whose job is to graciously bestow gifts of wisdom to humble, intellectually impoverished students.  I believe that my job is to provide an open and comfortable environment for students to learn through their own discovery.  I’ve found that when people have to work through problems and come to understanding on their own instead of just being handed information, they tend to internalize those discoveries more because they contribute to the learning process and have more ownership of it.  This teaching style is sometimes referred to as the deductive method.  As the name suggests, students are left to deduce solutions through their own reasoning.

In some ways, my teaching philosophy is, in some ways, similar to the well-known method of Socrates.  I like to facilitate students’ learning as they lead themselves to answers by asking relevant questions.  I believe that asking questions allows students to be more introspective and find answers within themselves.  For the most part, after being given the proper tools, students have almost everything they need within them to answer their own questions.  I like to empower students by giving them confidence and helping them to understand that they usually don’t need to look outside of themselves for answers, but rather that they already have them.

In facilitating language learning, I firmly believe that lecture style teaching is very ineffective.  I have found a great amount of effectiveness in facilitating language learning using a discussion style.  With discussion format lessons, students can exchange ideas with each other and the facilitator, reason through material and deduce solutions.  I don’t assign homework in my language classes because I believe that real and lasting language learning can only occur through human interaction and communication.  I like to make a deal with students at the beginning of the semester that, in exchange for not assigning them homework, I require their full attention, effort and energy during class time.  As for tests, I do believe that tests should be given, maybe 4 per semester.  I believe that giving tests is important because it gives students a motivator to bring their A game to their studies and to fully apply themselves.  In speaking classes, my tests consist of listening, speaking, and grammar comprehension.   While tests play a big role in students’ final grades, daily class participation grades are almost as important, percentage-wise.

In closing, my philosophy on teaching is that the classroom should be a dynamic and non-judgmental place to exchange ideas and come to our own conclusions. (-Rachel Branch)

1. Teaching Philosophy

    I base my teaching ESL/EFL Writing philosophy on the idea that teaching as much as possible to many people at a time requires using time very effectively. In ESL/EFL, people are only ready to learn certain grammar points at certain times, so teaching a grammar point to a class at any given time may be of limited effectiveness. In fact, because students need to produce quantities of language and alter the habits they use while producing it, I find it more useful to gear the class toward ways of getting them to produce more while thinking critically about what they produce.

    Traditional writing classes have limited the actual production, and increased the amount of attention each student is required to put into a single draft. I have the opposite approach, because I feel that students' first requirement is to have confidence, which they get primarily by experience writing many things in many different environments. Putting too much attention on a single draft focuses them on things they don't know or aren't ready to master, and makes them less confident. Focusing their attention on continual opportunity and more chances to do it right, or improve one's habits, makes them more aware of the skills they carry with them and their own ability to integrate new knowledge into their skills.

    With larger quantities of writing, some of it goes ungraded, or not sternly or severely criticized. Yes, that is a price I pay for improving their confidence, getting a quantity of things to compare, and being reasonably sure of encountering a wide range of grammatical and rhetorical choices. Making students into better writers implies, to me, making sure that these positive influences on their writing outweigh the debilitating, negative feelings that result from being told that one's writing is "not good enough."  (-Tom Leverett)