Teaching Philosophy

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Teaching Philosophy

• Rebecca Broyles

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Teaching is...
the path of a top analytical thinker towards
enlightenment where the formulas are replaced
with harmony, compassion, and freedom
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It is how the students do not fit into the
equations we write that makes them unique and
special.
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Philosophy and Professional Goals

• I will provide an optimum learning
  environment.
• I will attempt, through political action as well
  as theoretical teaching methods to downplay the
  dominate form of Educational Psychology
  essentialism (a.k.a. training) and replace it
  with Democratic Education.
• I will not look to make my school a school for
  the elite, but for everyone, and use my powers
  within the media to inform people of the pitfalls
  this leads to in society.
• If it isn't fun, I am not doing it right and
  should change.
• I will enlist other teachers and students to
  jointly formulate rules and logical consequences
  for compliance or violation.
• I will avoid teaching students what they do not
  want to learn.
• I will find ways to bring students lives and
  interests into the classroom.

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• I will engage the students in active learning of
  things that require thought, analysis,
  reflection, generalization, application, etc.,
  and put the learning to immediate utility.
• NO DEFICIT THINKING!
• I will avoid Behaviorism (Pavlov and Skinner
  Conditioning), unless done for quick fact
  learning requiring no thought.
• I will not look at students minds as brains that
  are automatic in storage retrieval and automatic
  memory.
• I will make learning hands on.
• I will introduce students to the world view,
  to world cultures, not just to American culture.
• I will keep in mind the theory of
  phenomenology that everyone experiences or is
  conscious of things differently in that every
  student interprets information according to their
  life experiences (be careful of deficit thinking
  here).
• I will build trust with my students and be
  able to openly communicate with them in terms
  that make sense to them.
• I will prepare students for life, not next
  year.
• I will build trust with my students and be
  able to openly communicate with them in terms
  that make sense to them.

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Lesson Development, Enactment and Reflection
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Lesson Development
This 30 Days lesson was created in my fury to
plan curriculum for the Sociology class I was
taking over. I had already planned on showing
the television series, 30 Days, to develop the
students ability to see various parts of a
sociological study, as well as, introduce them to
various cultural interactions.
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Lesson Development
To extend this learning experience from the
videos to real life, I engaged the students in
creating their own fictitious cultural
exchange. The students were to develop a
television pitch that integrated research and
creativity. The development of this lesson was
student-centered and emergent as we came up with
the criteria together as a class. The
assessment was agreed on as well separate points
for the PowerPoint Presentation and the written
paper handed in. Groups were graded as one.
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Enactment
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These ideas were brainstormed in class, as well
as the criteria. They did not have to include
all of the criteria, but they needed to provide a
complete story line.
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If I was to do this project again, there are a
few things that I would do differently

• It was such a big project, I would model the
  final product with a creation of my own.
• I would also delineate different timelines to
  keep the students on track maybe giving them a
  chart to check off what they have and have not
  done yet.
• Assigning roles to the group members would have
  also helped in the allocation of the work between
  the group members.

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Reflection Ongoing
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The students really enjoyed this project and we
emailed the television show to see if there was
an address where we could send pitches to
influence the next season. I still havent
received a reply, but the fact that they were
interested enough in this project to want to
share it with the world says volumes about its
impact.
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Effective Teaching
On-going Assessment Interactive Notebooks
Theory Practice Synergy Interdisciplinary
Learning Democratic Education
Best Practice Lessons Integrated in Technology
Diversity Real World Issues of Inequity
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Interactive Notebooks...
...encouraged students not only to record notes
in an organized, logical fashion, but always to
respond to, work with, and process the
information in ways that help them better
understand history.
The notebooks were graded once a six-weeks for
participation and format.
The right side of the notebook was used to record
class notes. The left was reserved for journal
writes and graphic organizers to better explore
their own opinions and attitudes toward
controversial topics.
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The students were resistant at first to the new
format of the Interactive Notebooks. They all
shrugged their shoulders when I explained the
method to my madness. They began to understand
the process and that they were being held
accountable for participation in class.
Through the feedback that I received on the
last notebook entry, many students found the
organization to be helpful, although wasteful of
paper. The feedback of some students who were
still resistant to adhering to my method proves
that all learners need different tools to learn
well.
I believe the Interactive Notebook to be a great
learning tool that teaches organizational skills
as well as keeping the students accountable for
their class participation.
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Quizzes were given every Friday as an on-going
assessment to inform me what worked and what
needed re-teaching.
This quiz in particular incorporates both letter
writing skills and artistic skills, along with
historical concept and content skills.
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This was my favorite advertisement for the
Freedmans Bureau.
The student who drew this was a quiet student
that wrote insightful answers but never talked in
class.
Again, proving that differentiated instruction to
various learners is beneficial.
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Class Rules Footprints of Democratic Education
I took the time in my Sociology class to talk
about our class as a society and what a society
needs to run smoothly- rules and consequences
that were agreed on by the society members.
After creating the rules and consequences as a
class we voted on them and posted them on the
agenda board.
This gave the class a backbone from which
management could be served by either me or the
students because we were all a part of creating
it and enforcing it.
I wish I would have done this for all my classes.
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lessons integrated in technology
Using newly aquired Photoshop skills, Students
created digital collages based on the thesis from
their biography paper.
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This project allowed the students to deconstruct
various images relating to a significant American
and reconstruct the images to form a new meaning.
This was linked to the idea that the students
had just deconstructed a biographers words from
the book they read and reconstructed those ideas
into their own biography paper.
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Diversity
As you can tell from the 30 Days lesson mentioned
previously, the students took on social
inequities such as differences in race, religion,
physical ability. Throughout the Sociology
class, we discussed inequities in society. I
continuously asked them, Well, how are we to
solve this? Their knee-jerk reply was always,
There is no way we can solve this. But through
continued discussion, the students eventually
came up with their own possible solutions and
realized that change was necessary and possible.
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Professional Development
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Collaboration with my fellow student teachers was
key to my professional development. The sharing
of ideas and materials, as well as coping
strategies was the most beneficial element to the
experience.
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Taking part in the Teaching American History
Grant Project, Engaging the American Past, gave
me a toolbox of strategies and ideas to implement
in the classroom. In addition to valuable
content research material, like Ronald Takakis
book, I was also introduced to materials useful
in discussing Globalization and its effects on
the border towns of Mexico. Through sharing the
news stories of the led smelter and the living
conditions of the Mexican village nearby, my
Sociology class learned the harsh reality of
poverty and corporate shame. In addition, the
materials included articles presenting what
students from nearby American high schools did to
raise the publics awareness of what was going
on. This opened up discussions relevant to the
local environment surrounding the students and
what they could possibly do to research the
harmful effects of the local plant and bring
public attention to the local environments
safety.
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Leadership
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One of the biggest challenges for me was
controlling and disciplining students. I found
it difficult to switch from the role of
teacher/friend to teacher/disciplinarian. One
student in particular pushed me again and again.
After showing him the referral I had written out
for him, I gave him the option of serving
detention with me after school. This
opportunity gave me a chance to find out why he
was being so disruptive and what we could do
together to make class more beneficial for him.
I told the student that because of his previous
actions in class, I had declared war on his land
and to be able to enter back into the class, he
would have to draft a peace treaty that we both
agreed on. This peace treaty was a binding
agreement between myself and the student. The
students attitude did improve in the class, in
my opinion, because someone actually took time to
listen and care. He did begin to throw peaceful
silent protests in the back of the room, but at
least on those days he was quiet and listened,
even if he wouldnt speak to other class members.
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Contact with Parents and the Community
I had a lot of contact with this parent
concerning trying to get his son back on track.
We ended up having daily emails back and forth as
to what was required of the student and how the
parent could help. I made sure, during a really
tough time for the student, to email a nice
update concerning a presentation that went really
well for the student.
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Feedback
It was also nice on days when I was feeling
under-appreciated and frustrated with everything,
to hear from parents that they have been talking
to son or daughter about their classes. Getting
good feedback from parents via students comments
to them was a real boost in confidence.
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This letter was sent home at the beginning of my
reign as teacher to inform the parents and let
them know about the class website.
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This website was updated weekly detailing the
class activities and homework due.
The following slides are of my teacher profile
page where the students and the parents could
look into my experience and gain some information
about the structure of the class.
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Summary
Every child is different, and deserves equal
opportunity
Having FUN is essential to learning
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The mistakes I made, and the triumphs along they
way have made me feel confidant as an educator.
Defining who that person is has been the hardest
part of the journey. Self-doubt can be your
biggest enemy when faced with adversity.
Teaching is a challenge. I hope to find a
school where I do not get bogged down with
standardization and have the ability to develop
my professionalism the way I feel necessary.
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I hope to someday change the world as
dramatically as Einstein did. The educational
system is in a paradigm shift right now, and
needs good leaders to guide the new path. I feel
that the educational philosophies I hold dear,
will complement this path and will work towards
spreading those ideals.