Teaching Philosophy

1. If you were asked, “What do you believe about teaching?” or “What do you want to achieve as a teacher?” What would your response be? Those answers will simply indicate what your teaching philosophy is all about. Here you have mine; how much does it differ from yours?
MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 145
Education is a simple and complex equation in which 50% is provided by the Instructor (teaching) and the other 50% is supplied by the Students (learning); without this symbiosis education may not take place. Learning is then an autonomous journey anyone is meant to take to shape his/her knowledge. In a successful learning situation, pupils will achieve learning outcomes and will develop new competencies they can eventually employ at work.
My perfect learning environment is that one in which students are self-motivated because deep learning is part of their way of being and experiencing knowledge. Life- long learning is what inevitably happens once my students are away from my virtual or F2F classroom since their thirst for more knowledge is so great that they need to quench it on their own, exploring new horizons in their education autonomously. And in this process, pupils will indeed develop their critical and hierarchical thinking skills to succeed and excel in their field.
When my teaching is over, I would like my students to have developed all sorts of competencies to become excellent teaching professionals and to have satisfied their

2. learning expectations in any of my courses. I really want my students to develop their whole potential to eventually see them using technology in their classroom wisely and ecologically and to see them apply suitable classroom management strategies that can really yield learning and a positive environment to foster that learning, too. I’d really like to see them planning and carrying out all sorts of activities in their future classroom to produce and replicate learning for other learners, their learners.
As a well-matured teaching professional, I have sampled lots of teaching methodologies, and now –at this point in my teaching career- I guess I have found a nice niche for my teaching potential: Project-Based Learning in content courses in a hybrid fashion because I want students to experience hands-on projects to develop creativity and a sense of accomplishment and CLT or Communicative Language Teaching –the real stuff- for the language classes I get to teach with a twist in which Krashen’s Model for Learning is always present.
I see myself as a trainer rather than a teacher. I want to prepare teaching professionals who can face current and future challenges in education. For that reason, providing formative feedback for guidance towards learning is my priority. If I see my pupils as my trainees, I can “train” them to become topnotch language instructors who can excel by themselves and benefit their future students’ learning. As trainees I want my pupils to learn the importance of treating others as humans and not just as a number is a college system. Likewise, they will treat their future learners as people and not a numerical figure. Furthermore, I want my students to really experience deep learning, not surface learning, since competencies and skills they will develop in my classes are useful assets for their teaching practice and professional development.
By attaching myself to these to these basic principles, I have developed myself professionally and matured as a teaching professional. Education is a symbiosis of many different factors, and I want my students to be certain that they will learn what is already stated in a course outline and why not, beyond.

3. Coppola, B. (n.d.). Writing a statement of teaching philosophy: Fashioning a framework for your classroom. Retrieved from http://galois.math.ucdavis.edu/UsefulGradInfo/HelpfulAdvice/ProfDev/Coppolla_TeachingStatement.pdf
University of Minnesota, Center for Teaching and Learning. (2013). Writing Your Teaching Philosophy. Retrieved on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014 from the University of Minnesota webpage at http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/philosophy/index.html
The Pebble Pad. (2010, Oct. 15). Writing a Teaching Philosophy. Retrieved on Tuesday, Sept 16 from The Pebble Pad website at http://portfolio.pebblepad.co.uk/bradford/viewasset.aspx?oid=361083&type=thought
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