My Teaching Philosophy

• Why do you teach?
• How do students best learn?
• What are your goals for your students? How will you know when you — and they — have succeeded?
• What qualities are important for a teacher?

My personal teaching philosophy is continually evolving and changing along with my experience. When I first started this program I aspired to be a "free spirited" teacher that inspired my students through creative learning experiences. After completing my first prac this has changed slightly. I have started to realise that at my age I do not have the life experience to be this type of teacher that inspired my in my school days. Instead I feel you have to be very clear and open about your classroom expectations with yourself and your students. I think that if things a honest in the classroom and it is an open environment everything is more compfortable.

I believe that students best learn through discussion, interaction and variation. I do not believe in teaching a novel by getting students to answer questions on each chapter in their work book each week. You need to provide different strategies for student engagement, if one thing does not work for a student then another activity will.

I don't know what my goals are for my students yet. There are the basics of completing assesment sucessfully and handing in work by deadlines but I do feel that it extends further than this. When students actively engage in discussion and question the ideas proposed then I believe they are starting to learn and engage.

A teacher needs to be honest, authentic, accessible, knowledgable, reasonable, approachable, accepting...and the list goes on!