Teaching Philosophy Reflections

Each person’s teaching philosophy is unique to the individual and to the field but an overall a theme occurs. Critical, analytical, and problem solving thinking are in some way part of each person’s teaching philosophy.  It is great to see that all of these types of thinking are very important to the teachers!

A particular insight that I found valuable is to include repetition of important concepts into the lecture, practice examples, etc. This ensures that each type of learning style is addressed for each individual student and hopefully the concept will be understood by the student.  Some concepts are trickery than others so repetition would help to understand the material better.  I would include this in my teaching philosophy.

Another insight that I as a student prefer but never thought to include in my teaching philosophy but will next time put in my teaching philosophy is to provide notes ahead of time before class lecture. This way the student can focus on the teacher instead of just regenerating the notes off of the PowerPoint and not listening to the instructor. Instructors give insight which can include stories or tricks on how to remember the content.

One other insight that I liked and will include in my teaching philosophy is to observe the students.  This is something that I do automatically but I never gave it any thought to putting it into the philosophy.  I believe that observing students is important because you as a professor can gauge if the classroom is understanding the content by the looks on the students faces, the volume in the classroom, and who is just not paying any attention i.e. texting, chatting, surfing web, etc.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the other teaching philosophies.  The philosophies gave valuable insight and good guidance on how to improve my personal teaching philosophy.