Copy Of Table Of Contents And Intro

Teaching Philosophy Celebrating each student’s individuality, creating a fun and safe learning environment, and differentiating instruction for each learner are the most important aspects of my teaching philosophy. The field of education covers a multitude of abilities, behaviors, needs and experiences; while also providing students with the knowledge they will need to be productive citizens in our everchanging global society. It is important that each student feels safe to embrace what makes them unique to build community in the classroom. The community that I create will build a dynamic group of learners who use their uniqueness and skills to help their peers grow.               As a teacher, it is my job to create a space that students feel safe and comfortable so dynamic learning will occur. To create an environment that allows every student to be successful, I heavily reflect on Brain Cambourne’s Seven Conditions of Learning. Brian Cambourne, an Australian educator, researched and outlined a series of interactive processes teachers can use to facilitate students’ understanding of the learning process. This model revolves around immersion, demonstration, expectations, responsibility, approximations, practice, and feedback/support/celebrations. Each of these supports the students and the teacher in Discovery Learning. By incorporating Brain Cambourne’s research into my classroom I am able to create an interactive and dynamic experience between the individual learner and the content, thus engaging students in complex learning tasks.               I know that my role as an educator is critical to the growth of my students. My students will need me to be prepared, knowledgeable, approachable and inspiring. Throughout my lessons I must immerse students into the content using sights or sounds and make the content meaningful and relevant to them. I will demonstrate using practical examples and require students to explicitly demonstrate what they have learned using a variety of approaches. I will explicitly and clearly set high expectations of all my students and provide a supportive environment for them to reach those expectations. I strive to have my students become accountable for their own learning.  Students learn to take responsibility by having the ability to make decisions themselves and engage in a variety of problem-solving activities. It is also important that make approximations toward learning expectations to plan challenging lessons for students. Students need purposeful repetition and practice with new knowledge or skills. To do this I will gradually change variables, supports, groupings, complexity, and context of learning to build student’s confidence with the knowledge or skills to make them independent learners. While students are learning new content, it is important to recognize that they will do so at different paces and in different ways. No matter how a student learns, continuous purposeful feedback is crucial. Using concrete, realistic feedback will help the students set new goals for themselves and help me plan future instruction.               By embracing individual students’ strengths and differences, it helps to create a community of learners that is creative, persistent, innovative, respectful, and invested in lifelong learning. The behavioral, social, and academic skills students learn in my classroom will help them through the rest of their lives.