This document contains a summary of the writer's background, perspectives on teaching and learning, and personal drive to teach. Some key points:
1) The writer is pursuing a Master's degree in Higher Education Administration and hopes to work as a student affairs administrator, helping students develop leadership skills.
2) The writer believes education can impact both individuals and communities by improving lives and addressing societal issues.
3) The writer's philosophy is influenced by goal-oriented design and the idea that students learn through conversation and collaboration. Activities should be designed around learning objectives.
4) As an administrator, the writer aims to create an open and supportive learning environment to promote student engagement and growth.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
This document contains a summary of the writer's background, perspectives on teaching and learning, and personal drive to teach. Some key points:
1) The writer is pursuing a Master's degree in Higher Education Administration and hopes to work as a student affairs administrator, helping students develop leadership skills.
2) The writer believes education can impact both individuals and communities by improving lives and addressing societal issues.
3) The writer's philosophy is influenced by goal-oriented design and the idea that students learn through conversation and collaboration. Activities should be designed around learning objectives.
4) As an administrator, the writer aims to create an open and supportive learning environment to promote student engagement and growth.
This document contains a summary of the writer's background, perspectives on teaching and learning, and personal drive to teach. Some key points:
1) The writer is pursuing a Master's degree in Higher Education Administration and hopes to work as a student affairs administrator, helping students develop leadership skills.
2) The writer believes education can impact both individuals and communities by improving lives and addressing societal issues.
3) The writer's philosophy is influenced by goal-oriented design and the idea that students learn through conversation and collaboration. Activities should be designed around learning objectives.
4) As an administrator, the writer aims to create an open and supportive learning environment to promote student engagement and growth.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
This document contains a summary of the writer's background, perspectives on teaching and learning, and personal drive to teach. Some key points:
1) The writer is pursuing a Master's degree in Higher Education Administration and hopes to work as a student affairs administrator, helping students develop leadership skills.
2) The writer believes education can impact both individuals and communities by improving lives and addressing societal issues.
3) The writer's philosophy is influenced by goal-oriented design and the idea that students learn through conversation and collaboration. Activities should be designed around learning objectives.
4) As an administrator, the writer aims to create an open and supportive learning environment to promote student engagement and growth.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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Writers Biography
My name is Sing Wong and I am currently a Master’s candidate for the Higher Education Administration program at Penn State. I hope to use my knowledge and experiences within the realm of student affairs as an administrator, where I will work closely with students and student organizations. Within this role, I plan on helping students develop their leadership skills, as well as coach students on relevant policies that may affect them. Additionally, my role as an administrator will give me the opportunity to guide students through their college careers, which may include career counseling or personal counseling.
The Importance of Education
When I am asked the question “how can you make the world a better place”, the first word that comes to mind is education. As a lifelong learner, I see education as a gateway for growth and change, both in my own personal life, and in the communities that I reside in. Not only does education have the ability to impact your own life, but the lives of every single person in the world. By improving yourself, you add value to the community that you belong. i Every little piece of learning that take place can relate to immeasurable outcomes, the cure to cancer, childhood obesity, financial reform, global warming, or AIDS.
Perspective on Teaching & Learning
Throughout my coursework as a Master’s candidate in Higher Education
Administration, I was exposed to multiple perspectives on learning. Among those, two concepts in particular have shaped my philosophy of teaching. First, my philosophy of teaching includes goal-oriented design. This process can be defined in three steps; 1) identify the desired outcome, 2) determine how you would measure success, and 3) plan your readings and activities around those outcomes. ii I believe that in order to effectively teach, one must design a course based on the courses’ objectives, rather than design the objectives based on a courses’ textbook, or other ‘inherited’ activities from previous instructors. By using a goal-oriented design, we can focus on the aspects of a course that is most important for students and design activities around those goals to ensure that students successfully achieve those objectives.
The second part of my philosophy of teaching is based on the belief that students learn primarily through conversation and collaboration. While reading for one of my courses, I came across the saying “education initiates us into conversation, and by virtue of that conversation initiates us into thought.” I believe this statement is insightful because I believe that it is not enough that students read over relevant coursework, or simply complete exams, but real understanding occurs when students process that information and talk through the topic with their teachers, or peers. This can occur through various methods, ranging from in-class discussions, to peer discussion groups, to peer teaching, to peer assessments.
In Practice
The two components of my philosophy on teaching can be applied in various ways.
First and foremost, goal-oriented design is essential to any planning type of activity, or workshop. Some examples may include developing a workshop on effective communication skills, or helping a student organization obtain funding. In both scenarios, having the goal in mind first will more effectively allow me to help students reach that goal. By focusing on the goal, you can properly assign measures of achievement. For example, if the goal is to build public speaking skills, I can design a measure such as a self-assessment of how comfortable students are with public speaking after going through the workshop, instead of randomly finding quizzes that may test on specific public speaking techniques, which really would not assess how students improved throughout the workshop.
Additionally, I firmly believe that conversation is the key to learning. By virtue,
student organizations work in collaboration with one another to meet a common goal, whether it by to play flag football, or student government groups who aim to change university policies. By guiding students and giving them the ability to learn from each other, they can better understand concepts because it would be in a “common” language. Famed poet Whitman stated, “to teach is to learn twice”, expressing the benefits of collaborative peer teaching.
Within my experiences as a student in Higher Education, these two components
have had a great impact on my learning. When I started my program, there was a large emphasis on group projects, and in-class discussions. I did not initially understand the value of these types of activities, but as I participated, I started to comprehend concepts that were not initially clear to me purely based on the readings. By listening to other student’s interpret the readings; I was able to follow along and better understand the topic. My first introduction to goal-oriented design was enlightening. Prior to the in-class discussions that took place around this subject, I had never really thought about how one would design a course. After these discussions, I saw value in creating a course that focuses on getting students to meet course objectives, rather than designing a course where you simple throw material at the student, without a clear goal in mind.
In addition to these two components, I believe that it is my duty as a teacher to
create a learning environment that promotes open communication, respect, approachability, and support. By creating an environment where students feel comfortable, students are more likely to engage the materials presented to them fully, without self-reservation or worry about what others may think. Personal Drive to Teach
I choose to be a teacher because I believe in the value of guidance during the
learning process. My job, as a student affairs administrator, is to create an atmosphere where students can best learn and grow as personally, as part of the campus community, and as part of the larger global community. I believe that there will always be a need for leadership development among college students, some of whom may be posed to take national and international leadership roles. I believe that every effort I put into teaching translates into a benefit for the students that I oversee, whether it be professional job growth or personal growth. In turn, I believe that i This belief was inspired by “Individual and Social Aspects of Learning” by Salomon & Perkins, both of who believe that the relationship between social learning and community growth is symbiotic. ii The concept of goal-oriented design was inspired by Wiggins and & McTighe’s backwards design. I find this concept extremely useful in planning out a courses design that effectively helps students reach the course objectives.
