My Teaching Philosophy: The Water Makes the Well [1]

In an era of specialization, I am a generalist.

In an era of narrow interest, I am interested in everything.

In an era of the scholar-researcher, I am a scholar-teacher.

In an era of learning for career, my career is learning.

In an era of college for vocational training, I still believe in college for self-discovery.

In an era of the information age, I use information technologies to foster learning.

In an era of higher education for all, I love the challenge of it all.

In an era of celebrating personal financial gains, I celebrate my students’ gains.

In an era of competitiveness, I value my student’s individual competencies.

In an era of grading on the curve, I am filled with joy to award all “A’s” if earned.

In an era of “Why can’t Joe or Jane Student write?” I ask, what makes them “tick” so they will want to write.

In an era of diversity, I have always valued the backgrounds, knowledge and experiences of my students.

In era of standardization, I encourage my students to customize their own learning and knowledge acquisition.

In an era of research as the measure of faculty productivity, I measure my productivity by my students’ grades.

In an era of computer-graded examinations, I believe the best demonstration of what a student has learned is still the term paper or project.

In an era of “dot.edu” courses, I believe online technologies supplement rather then replace the traditional classroom setting.

In the era of labels, I am a constructivist in both my learning and teaching styles.

What does the above all mean? 

Without losing sight of the course objectives, I go where my students lead me.  I believe learning occurs on a continuum from straightforward recall to complex analysis, synthesis and evaluation. I believe the acquisition of knowledge occurs when it is transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory. For this process to occur, the knowledge must be meaningful to the student.  Therefore, an important priority to me as an instructor is assessing students’ prior knowledge, experiences and interests.  I use this assessment to help my students make personal connections to new content and encourage them to explore and discovery in ways that make personal sense to them. 

I believe students should leave my course with something of value -- something personally useful or relevant beyond just a grade.  I use a variety of teaching strategies and assessment methods targeted to the needs of each individual class. Using a variety of teaching strategies coupled with my own insatiable quest for knowledge has made me an effective instructor in a range of content areas and student types.  Finally, I believe students, ultimately, must to take responsibility for their own learning. In other words, I believe, "the water makes the well.” 

As the instructor, I provide the experiences, the environment, and the tools for students to build their well of knowledge; nevertheless, the student must construct it.  Therefore,I am a constructivist.   A constructivist as defined by Nickens (2001) [2] ,

Constructivism is not a structured theory but rather a sense of underlying philosophy about the nature of learning which is explained and illustrated through the ideas of many theorists and educators [including] major contributors Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Case; other contributors include John Dewey, Goodman, Gibson, Barbara Rogoff, Schon, and many others. [Ideas and strategies] practiced in constructivist classrooms include Discovery learning, situated cognition, authentic tasks, simulations, learning through social interaction, mediated learning, scaffolding, cognitive apprenticeships, and learning through general problem-solving.  Constructivism may be defined, according to Slavin (1999) as ‘theories that state that learners must individually discover and transform complex information, checking new information against old rules and revising rules when they no longer work.’’

I love learning and always have.  I try to pass my love on learning on to the students I teach. I cannot image a time when I am not consciously learning through self-directed teaching and research.  I see connections in everything I read, experience, and think.  I work hard at helping my students see deeper connections beyond the superficial.  I know from experience, effective instructors can often make even the most mundane and boring content meaningful and thus useful to students by actively engaging them in their own knowledge acquisition. 

I learn by teaching.   The water makes the well.