Statement of Educational Philosophy
There are many things that a teacher needs to be aware of and take into consideration when he is interacting with students. Whether it be teaching students new material or communicating with them on a personal level, it is always important for a teacher to remember the material that he is trying to teach each student, the best way that each student grows as a learner and as a person, and the diversity that each student brings to our world filled with different races, cultures, religions, and abilities. If a teacher forgets these things while interacting with students, then he may miss a valuable opportunity to teach or motivate a student about a topic, or may even accidentally make a student uncomfortable or upset because the teacher did or said something that confused or offended the student. It is for these reasons that I, as a future mathematics teacher, want to consider all of these things when I am teaching students.
Mathematical literacy is an especially important skill for students to master that I intend to emphasize during instruction so that my students will better understand and comprehend the meaning and use of the various mathematical terms and concepts that they will be exposed to throughout my math classes. I intend to develop these skills by using various teaching strategies that I have learned during my teacher education, such as various kinds of Graphic Organizers, Think/Pair-Share, Crumple It Up, and Exit Slips. My students should then be able to demonstrate their understanding of mathematics by properly using and applying the various mathematical terms and concepts that they have learned to various math problems, both theoretically based and real life application problems.
Of course, assisting all of my students in their understanding of mathematics will require me to teach in a clear and effective manner that assists my students’ understanding and comprehension of mathematics. Accomplishing this will require me to try to motivate and develop interest in my students for mathematics, which should reduce or eliminate my students’ adverseness to doing math problems and will hopefully make doing math problems an enjoyable experience. In order to build this interest and motivation, I would try to connect the math that I am teaching them to activities that they are interested in or people that they know. (Anyone want to find where a net should be placed to catch their favorite math teacher after he is shot out of a cannon?)
Accomplishing my goal of teaching mathematics to all of my students will require me to modify my teaching to accommodate any needs that my students may have, including learning disabilities, physical handicaps, different cultural background, or poor English fluency (note IEPs and 504 plans). I will also make sure that none of them are excluded and that I incorporate my students’ culture and abilities into my teaching whenever possible. To include these students into my lessons I will try to create opportunities for them to capitalize on or account for, in cases such as physical disabilities, their unique abilities and backgrounds (cultural word problems).
In conclusion, when teaching mathematics I have every intention of doing my best to make sure that all of my students are literate in mathematics, that my instruction is clear and includes my students’ various interests, and that I am sure to include all of my students in the class, including the capitalization of my students unique abilities and backgrounds.
Mathematical literacy is an especially important skill for students to master that I intend to emphasize during instruction so that my students will better understand and comprehend the meaning and use of the various mathematical terms and concepts that they will be exposed to throughout my math classes. I intend to develop these skills by using various teaching strategies that I have learned during my teacher education, such as various kinds of Graphic Organizers, Think/Pair-Share, Crumple It Up, and Exit Slips. My students should then be able to demonstrate their understanding of mathematics by properly using and applying the various mathematical terms and concepts that they have learned to various math problems, both theoretically based and real life application problems.
Of course, assisting all of my students in their understanding of mathematics will require me to teach in a clear and effective manner that assists my students’ understanding and comprehension of mathematics. Accomplishing this will require me to try to motivate and develop interest in my students for mathematics, which should reduce or eliminate my students’ adverseness to doing math problems and will hopefully make doing math problems an enjoyable experience. In order to build this interest and motivation, I would try to connect the math that I am teaching them to activities that they are interested in or people that they know. (Anyone want to find where a net should be placed to catch their favorite math teacher after he is shot out of a cannon?)
Accomplishing my goal of teaching mathematics to all of my students will require me to modify my teaching to accommodate any needs that my students may have, including learning disabilities, physical handicaps, different cultural background, or poor English fluency (note IEPs and 504 plans). I will also make sure that none of them are excluded and that I incorporate my students’ culture and abilities into my teaching whenever possible. To include these students into my lessons I will try to create opportunities for them to capitalize on or account for, in cases such as physical disabilities, their unique abilities and backgrounds (cultural word problems).
In conclusion, when teaching mathematics I have every intention of doing my best to make sure that all of my students are literate in mathematics, that my instruction is clear and includes my students’ various interests, and that I am sure to include all of my students in the class, including the capitalization of my students unique abilities and backgrounds.
Educational Philosophy Reflection
I found creating this Statement of Educational Philosophy to be very useful for helping me to organize my thoughts and figure out what all I want to keep in mind about my students while teaching them. This is an important artifact because it gives a quick overview of my beliefs about what I believe are the most important parts of education and what I want to try to keep in mind at all times while I am trying to teach my students.
Belief Matrix Reflection
The Belief Matrix below is an artifact that shows my understanding of various things that affect education and how each of these things affect the education of students. This is important to understand because it can help me to remember what is within my power to change as a teacher, and what I have no control over and should not get stressed about unnecessarily.
belief_matrix.doc | |
File Size: | 36 kb |
File Type: | doc |
Field Journal and Tutoring Incident and Analysis Reflection
The Field Journal and Tutoring Incident and Analysis below are artifacts from my EDUC 334: Later Childhood and Adolescence class when I was just starting to help some middle school students as a tutor after school, so that they could better understand various concepts by getting assistance with the homework that they were struggling to understand. These artifacts are important because they explain some of my first interactions with students as someone who was trying to help them to learn their school material, what questions I had about how to effectively educate these students, and (by comparing these artifacts to more recent artifacts) how I have improved my understanding of students and how to effectively teach them concepts.
field_journal_10-13-2011.docx | |
File Size: | 17 kb |
File Type: | docx |
tutoring_incident_and_analysis.docx | |
File Size: | 18 kb |
File Type: | docx |