Text Philosophy:
As someone who has been a student for many years, I feel that I have a great working knowledge of what makes a successful classroom versus what makes an unsuccessful one. In my limited experience teaching workshops on writing, this knowledge has been reinforced in a lot of ways, but adapted in just as many ways.
To begin, I believe that students work best when they are entertained and kept interested to some degree. This spark of interest can come in many forms. I have had teachers take us outside to freewrite when the weather got warm, and teachers who simply stopped their lecture to ask us to get in groups and discuss our projects, or the lecture thus far. The practice of getting students out of their comfort zone, forcing them to become active participants in their learning has always, in my observations, made for a great classroom environment, and increased learning as a result.
Based on these feelings, I would consider myself a social constructivist. As Vygotsky found in his case studies, students simply perform better and can obtain more knowledge when they're engaging with someone, rather than just being told information by a superior. If making students move around and discuss with a classmate not only makes the classroom environment more fun, but also helps them learn more, how could I argue with that?
My commitment to student learning is perhaps the most important part of my teaching philosophy. It doesn't matter how much we cover in class, or how many readings we complete, or how many papers you end up writing throughout the course of the semester. If you don't come away from this course with the accomplishment of really gaining knowledge, I haven't done my job. It's for this reason that you can expect timely responses to emails regarding your questions about the course, ample availability in terms of office hours in order for us to meet, a willingness to discuss in detail anything you don't fully understand, and timely feedback on your assignments. I also am a firm believer in revision. If you do poorly on a paper or project, the best way to turn that bad grade into a learning experience is to be able to revisit that paper, and fix the problems therein. School is about learning, and I don't ever want to lose sight of that.
My courses will contain elements with which you are familiar, as well as things you might not be completely comfortable with. This means that there will be traditional assignments like papers, journals, and quizzes, but there will also be parts of this course that force you to use new technologies to aid in your overall learning. You will have the opportunity to play around with these technologies, discuss them with your classmates, and hopefully gain some great tools that will help you in the future.
I feel that the classroom setting should not be a high-anxiety place. We are here to learn, and will explore various methods that will help us do just that. I want all of us to be open, have discussions, and speak up when we're having issues. At the same time, however, I want you all to take this class seriously-- let's make the most of our time together by learning all we can, while having a great time doing it.
