Pin it to Teach it
My Learning Philosophy
I believe that to learn science you must always be questioning the information. That is how I see science. Nothing is for certain. You must always be prepared that what you believe to be “true” is actually false. Theories and hypotheses are proven wrong every day. So I feel like as I am being taught information on science I should not just take it for what it is, but question it to truly understand why that information is true as of right now.
As a student of science I wish it had been emphasized to me early on that it isn’t exactly all about the concepts, but the process of discovering the concepts and the reasoning behind them. Yes knowing the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell seems to be crucial in grade school, but I’ve now come to realize that the reasoning behind the differences is of much more importance. Plants have a cell wall and chlorophyll while animal cells do not, but if the student doesn’t understand why that fact is important to the ecosystem then learning that fact is useless. In my class I hope to teach them about this standard while also helping them to more thoroughly understanding it by connecting it to their lives!
Through the constant questioning in the mind of a student in science they will only effectively learn if they attach this with their usual or comfortable study habits. If you need good notes, hand drawn graphics, or to talk it out with someone it is their responsibility to make sure they do this or the content they learn will not click. By applying these good study and learning habits in the middle school age they will be lifelong learners because they will have their process down. A good student is always aware and organized when learning science because information changes and learning it their way and not someone else’s way is always best.
My Teaching Philosophy
I believe that as a teacher of science you must be prepared for the worst. By this I mean you must be prepared for the student who will question everything just because he or she is curious and for the student who does not understand the material at all. This may have come off as sounding like a negative thing, but it is actually a good thing in that it will actually teach you how to handle different situations and to be prepared to help every type of student you may have. You have to as a teacher be able to handle about 31 different minds at a time (that is my largest class). This I believe will be hard to balance at first, but in time I will be able to figure out how to help the curious and the confused. I have students of all different levels and there is a lot of diversity.
I feel like you know you are a good teacher when you have the time to build up the information from bottom to top to make sure that the kids who would have usually been confused are on top of it and the kids who ask questions have a small amount of time to pick at your brain then you have successfully taught the lesson. Sometimes we have the confused ones and questioning students, but usually I move at such a perfect pace and give the proper attention needed for each student that there isn’t much of a hold up!
Since you will most likely have every type of student in your classroom I believe in being prepared for all types of learners. This means that you must be prepared for the mixture of visual, audio, and kinesthetic learners every day. With diagrams, graphics, and written notes on the overhead the visual learners can be watching and recording what they feel like they need. While they do that the audio learners can just sit and listen to you talk as you walk around the class. Finally, the kinesthetic learners can join in on the activity you have with the lesson while also passing around the diagrams they can hold in their hands. With all three learning types being taken care of through each lesson, less students will need extra help to understand. I try really hard to incorporate all three learning styles in each of my lessons, but sometimes it is hard to accomplish that goal. Personally for me I need someone to explain it to me through lecturing while also having a visual for me to see on the projector so this teaching method would even make sure that I completely understood to the best of the teacher’s abilities.
