My Teaching Philosophy

Delivering the knowledge to the students is the basic thing in the learning process. During my academic life, I had many difficulties to understand the lesson or the subjects. One of these experiences was in primary school in grade four, with my math teacher. The math teacher was teaching the students by the traditional method which is, explaining the lesson verbally without involve the student, asking questions then using a same worksheet for all students in the class. The role of the students was to be a listener, answer the teacher questions when she asks them and fill the worksheet individually.

During the lesson, some of the students did not focus and felt boring which led to increase the behavior issues. The rest of the students understand the lesson but didn’t get any improve or develop because the worksheet did not match with their levels’. (very easy or very difficult).

At the end of the year, the result was: many students fail in the math and this because the teaching method that the teacher used.

One teaching method may not work for all students:

As a teacher, I believed that I should use different methods and activities which helps me to support all students in the classroom with their different multiple intelligence and learning styles. Gardner says that these differences "challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way” (Gardner, 1991). So, each student has a different style to learn and the teacher’s role is support all styles in the classroom and provide appropriate and variety of activities.

In my teaching practice, I used different teaching method to help students engage the lesson and understand better. For example, according my action plan that I did it for the action research I used music and songs to introduce each lesson to support kinesthetic, musical and audio students. In addition, I set different centers including hands on activities depending on the different intelligence. For instance, solving problem center, performance center, art center, library center, math center, computer center which helps the students to enjoy learning and fit their styles. Finally, link the activities and outcomes to the school theme which make the students enjoy and change the routines and this including my PDP goal for this year.

2. Students are not the same:

I believed that each student has different level and ability than other (high, medium, low), so the students are not the same. The teacher should assess the student first, to determine his level. Then, identify the student needs. After that set the activities and focus on differentiated between the activities. By this way I think the teacher can help the student to move from level to another and this called scaffolding process. This will help students to receive their needs and make them ready to the next step.

In addition, I think that the teacher can mix the abilities in some groups so the students can learn from other and help other. "Vygotsky's theories also feed into current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their zone of proximal development" (McLeod, 2012)

In my teaching practice, I did different activities, sometime in peers in circle time. And separate the levels in some centers.

To sum up, remember that all students are not the same and that one teaching method may not work for all students.

References:

Gardner, H. (1991). Multiple Intelligences. Retrieved from TECWEB: http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html

McLeod, S. (2012). Zone of Proximal Development. Retrieved from Simplypsychology.: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html

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