Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy
Empowering all students to succeed

All students should have the opportunity to feel safe at school and engage in academic
and social learning. In order to ensure that all of my students succeed, I will provide
equal opportunities for my students. Specifically, I will give students the opportunity to
work with one another and also receive differentiated instruction based on their needs. I
also believe in getting to know each student and holding them to high expectations.
Although students bring a variety of external factors into the classroom from home that
may affect their learning, I will work hard to ensure that they get the differentiated,
individualized attention that they need, both academically and socially, to succeed.
Creating a classroom community
The classroom community is important to establish at the beginning of the year in order
to make student feel safe in a new learning space. If my classroom is a safe environment
where students cooperate with one another, then the students will be able to take
academic risks and grow. I will strive to create a classroom community in which students
and teachers work together in a mutual learning and knowing process. Student/teacher
and peer relationships within the classroom are essential if successful learning is going to
take place. I will begin developing these relationships from day one or before the school
year, if possible. Classroom management is also an important part of the community. I
plan on using proactive, not reactive, behavior management strategies, particularly those
aligned with Responsive Classroom, such as logical consequences and the 3 Rs
(reinforce, remind, redirect). Students should also work together, with the teacher as a
facilitator, to create the classroom rules. This will help students become responsible and
accountable for upholding the expectations in the classroom because they will have
ownership of the classroom rules. My expectations and procedures will be modeled and
repeated upon the first few weeks of school and revisited as needed. All of these
components foster the safe learning environment that I believe can empower students.
Instruction and Assessment
Assessments need to be clearly aligned with the learning experiences described above. In
order to do this, backwards designing is key. I will create student-friendly learning targets
so that they know the objectives of each unit of study, and I will give pre-assessments to
see what students already know about each unit. The pre-assessment could be formal (for
example, a test) or informal (KWL chart). As I outlined above, I plan on creating an
environment with open discussion and collaborative grouping in which students learn and
explore together, with myself as a guiding force in their educational experience.
Assessments should also give students the opportunity to transfer their knowledge of
content and concepts to real world situations, which prompts problem-solving and higherlevel thinking skills. In addition, student self-reflection of their learning and processes
(such as group work, communication, growth etc.) is important. I will be sure to model
and guide students in filling out rubrics for individual and group projects and other daily
tasks in order to teach them how to evaluate themselves. This allows them to see the
importance of the learning process and builds metacognitive skills about learning.
Furthermore, I will take the time to conference with students and give them specific
feedback. Specific feedback makes expectations clear and also helps the student see what
he/she can do to improve. Through ongoing, formative assessments, I can be sure to use
student data in order to drive my instruction from day to day. I also plan to keep personal
portfolios of student work as well as personal notes/observations from throughout the
year in order to track each students progress.
I believe that instruction should be interactive and that students should be active
participants in their learning process. Learning opportunities in my classroom will
include experiments, games, and demonstrations that encourage students to make their
own meaning from the content and connect the content to the real world. Also, students
will engage in project-based learning, which encourages students to work together and
stimulates higher-level thinking and creativity. I will make sure to focus on having a
classroom with student-talk during the learning experiences described above.
Furthermore, it is important to integrate the subject areas and allow students to make
connections between social studies, mathematics, science, language arts, and the fine arts.
Creativity and making connections will not only spark student interest but also critical
thinking skills. These learning experiences and lessons will align with the pre and post
assessments, as discussed above.
Collaboration
In education, collaboration is necessary in order to ensure that all students needs are met.
There are administrators, instructional coaches, intervention specialists, special education
teachers, ESL teachers, counselors, and resource teachers who are all involved in the well
being of our students. This means that communication needs to be open, with emails and
weekly meetings to look over student data and change instruction to meet his/her needs
when necessary. It is important to keep in mind the students needs and collaborate with
others in order to keep consistent expectations and goals for each student.

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Teaching Philosophy

Empowering all students to succeed

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