Philosophy

The role of the teacher

I feel that my role is a facilitator of learning.  I want to guide students in the direction of becoming lifelong learners.  I try to provide creative opportunities for student to explore and learn that generates organic curiosity.  Giving guidance and instruction where needed.  My desire is to provide culturally responsive teaching, honoring the contributions to the world made by different cultures. I strive to always have a learning attitude and be willing to be flexible to meet the needs of my students.  Students will often find non-traditional ways of learning in my class to help meet the learning style of all students. Every student is a unique individual and learns in a new and different way.  It is my responsibility to figure out what style a student learns best in and what motivates them.  

High quality of learning

I believe that all students should be held to a high attainable level of learning. Students will be given differentiated instruction to meet their needs and challenge their learning.  Students will be given chances to improve and learn from previous work they have submitted. I do not believe in giving easier tasks to students.  I feel that all students are capable of achieving.  I also believe that it really doesn't help to give students easier tasks so they can experience success and feel more confident, or to provide them with lots of positive feedback (please see section on grading/feedback).

Growth mindset

I want every student to develop the goal of quality of learning and desire to acquire new skills to find out about the world around them and to truly understand what they’re doing.  One important element to meeting this goal is to teach students how to deal with failure. I want to encourage students to have a healthy and resilient attitude toward failure.   It really doesn't help to give students easier tasks so they can experience success and feel more confident, or to provide them with lots of positive feedback.

One of my goals is to help students learn not to be discouraged by failure but that failure leads to learning Dweck, C.S Ph.D. (2006).   To quote Aunt Billie from Meet the Robinsons “From failing you learn. From success...not so much!”  I attempt to help students understand the learning should not be easy and they should not fear challenges.  Allow them to struggle and make mistakes.  This helps students to develop perseverance.  The impact on students can have long term or short term effects that can affect the choices that they make later in life.