My Teaching Philosophy

I believe that all students look up to their teachers as role models, and it is my job as
a teacher to make sure my students look to me for guidance with any problems they
are experiencing inside and outside the classroom. I feel as it all students should
treat their teacher not just as an authority figure, but as a close friend as well. From
personal experience, the classes that I have enjoyed and succeeded in the most were
classes in which I had a very personal relationship with the teacher. I believe a
teacher is an individual that children can come to with complete trust and faith.
There must be honestly between a student and their teacher. However, I do not
want to just be that push over teacher who everyone thinks is the “most fun”
because they don’t have to think as hard in their class. I am going to strive to be the
teacher that is known for pushing my students into a world of knowledge and
understanding that they didn’t even know existed. I want to have a huge impact on
all my student’s lives, and to make sure I was able to show them the light into a new
tunnel of appreciation for school and learning.
One of my main goals is to make students excited about coming into my
classroom that day, rather than having them dread coming into my classroom that
day. I have experienced both of these feelings in numerous cases throughout my
educational journey, and believe me it truly makes all the difference in the world. I
believe the most important part of any teachers responsibility is the fact that they
must constantly check in on their students understanding of the material and lesson
being taught that day. Before the class can move on to more material as a whole,
each student must have a clear understanding of what is going on. This idea is
emphasized in one of our readings called, “Checking for Understanding” when
Fisher and Frey write, “Checking for understanding is the link between teaching and
learning and should be part of every lesson that teachers plan”(Fisher & Frey, NA,
p.3). The reading also states that, “Checking for understanding is an important part
of a formative assessment system. Looking at student responses or student work
informs the teacher, and that information can be acted upon to create better
understanding. Importantly, checking for understanding must occur throughout the
lesson, at least every 5–10 minutes, if teachers want to maintain the rigor of the
lesson and support student learning”(Fisher & Frey, NA, p.1).
Another one of my main goals as a teacher is to make sure each and every one of my
students feel as safe, comfortable, and confident as they possibly can. I want to
encourage my students not to be afraid of being wrong. And if they are ever wrong
we can actually celebrate to the fact that we are able to find the source of their
confusion, and we can tackle the situation as a whole class, or one on one. Overall, I
want my students to be smiling at all times while being enthusiastic to learn as
much as they can each and every day.
 Part Two – teaching philosophy

I will have a set of classroom expectations. They will consist of things that students
should do and things that students shouldn’t do.

Students should:
- Come in and sit down in assigned sets
- Be prepared with a pencil or blue or black pen
- Be polite when other students or the teacher is talking
- Read or write if finished with assignments

Students should NOT:

- Wear hats in the classroom
- Talk when the teacher or another student is talking
- Leave the room without permission
- Write in neon or colored gel pen
- Use foul, rude, or discriminating language
- Use the phone in class
- Eat anything larger than a snack
- Throw anything (bottle flipping or throwing trash into garage can)
- Do homework for other classes

- Students are allowed to step outside to blow their nose or whenever they really
feel like they need to for any reason – only one student at a time. if you notice a
student abusing this privilege, cease to allow them outside, at least for a period of
time.
- If a student needs to travel anywhere on campus (nurse, office, library) they will
need a note. They do not need a student escort. Call any of the office aids if a student
needs to be driven to the nurse.

Rules
- No headphones in class
- No phones
- Have to give legitimate reason for late work
- No packing up early
- Four tardies and you get small percentage of grade dropped
- Participation is very important and will strongly factor into overall grade
- Will be called on if you are making a habit of not participating
- See me after class if you need help or clarification with anything
- Late work accepted up to one week late – partial credit 5% deducted per day
 Procedures

When I am a teacher I am going to greet all students at the door every single day
when they walk into my classroom. This builds a positive relationship between the
student and the teacher and forms a level bond. The students start to feel like an
equal to the teacher rather than being intimidated by their authority figure. I will
make all my students be sitting in their seat when the bell rings, no matter what. If
they are not they will be marked tardy. Five tardies will result in ¼ of an entire
letter grade. This is simply to get students to build a sense of responsibility and to
get a sense of time management, considering most students don’t have this skill
when they get to college. I am going to show objectives for that day on the board
when they walk in. After they walk in every day I am going to have them do a quick
write 5-10 minutes to start class everyday to get their brains flowing, and to get
them really thinking. Also, in the beginning of class turn in homework in the front of
the classroom in the HW basket. At the end of class I am going to collect graded
work at the front of class in the GRADED basket. One of my main procedures is that I
am going to take all the troublemakers, class-clowns, and talkative students and
require them to sit in the front row so I can see every move they make and they can
be fully engaged in the lesson I am teaching that day. This idea was sparked from my
own experience when observing a sophomore high school class and from the
Glasser reading when it states, “Teachers who stay silent or only briefly
acknowledge students' comments are unlikely to engage in active listening.
However, teachers who engage in active listening can better understand behavior
problems, help students to identify the causes of the misbehavior, and perhaps be
more successful in convincing students to accept responsibility or ownership of the
problem and in helping to determine a solution for the problem”(Glasser, NA, p. 4).
If a student doesn’t feel as if a teacher really cares about them and their education
they wont be motivated to their work, which result in a failure on the teacher’s part.

Classroom arrangement / environment

In my classroom there will be seven rows with five desks in each row. Soon
as you walk into my classroom you will open the door and there will be a homework
turn in box immediately to the left. Straight and to the right will be the garbage can.
If you keep walking straight when you walk into the classroom there will be the set
up of chrome books if they are provided for my classroom. There will also be a
decent sized bookshelf straight ahead in the back right corner of the class and this
will consist of books that interest the students as well as dictionaries and multiple
extra copies of the books we will be studying that semester. Each student will be
facing forward towards the whiteboard. There will be enough space in between each
row so students and the teacher can easily move through them without having to
worry about tripping or fitting through. The teacher’s desk will be in the front of the
classroom in the left corner if you are facing the students. Most supplies will be
stored in this desk and students may come up to the desk at any point of the class
session for a question or for anything, unless of course the teacher in lecturing at the
time. There will be a large bulletin board on the left wall of the classroom, directly
above and next to the teacher’s desk. This board will have anything from students’
artwork to dates of specific school events such as field trips, appreciation days,
school rallies, holidays, spirit days, ect. There will be even more supplies in the back
left corner of the classroom where the storage will be. The back wall of the
classroom will be filled with inspirational quotes from iconic figures of literature as
well as all the work that the students have completed so far that semester. My
seating arrangement and my procedures are influenced by many different readings
from this semester, but one of the main sources that helped me with this was from
the Hardin reading when he says, “Needed procedures for all classrooms include the
following: a process for distributing and collecting materials: a procedure for the
storage of common materials: specific procedures for the use of equipment such as
computers: procedures for entering and exiting the classrooms: specific procedures
for handling emergency situations such as fire alarms, weather alerts, and security
issues”(Hardin, NA, p.7). This is helpful and effective due to the fact that it is so
utterly specific and clear. As a future teacher, I need to be prepared for all five of
these procedures.

Part Three – teaching philosophy

For my two-day lesson plan I am planning on using two anchor texts that I
am going to use throughout the semester. My approach will mainly be direct
instruction. However, I will also be somewhat of a social constructivist because my
students will be able to get ideas from multiple group members. I want my students
to have fun, be interested, and excited about the books they get to read. These two
books are going to be Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and Mary’s Monster: Love,
Madness, and How Mary Shelly Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge. I will be teaching
the Mary’s Monster first so I can introduce my students to the author of the novel
before they have to actually read the novel. I believe by doing this it will make the
students utterly more interested in thoroughly understanding the complex novel
that was published all the way back in 1816. At the end of both texts I will have the
class individually create their own “monsters” out of their own life experiences, and
by doing this it will cause students to truly learn how to self-reflect on their own
experiences and why/how they matter to them to the extent in which they do. Once
they have completed this, I will have my students create their own poems that will
mimic certain tones in certain parts of the books. For example, if there is a spot in
the book where we find the language and tone to be extremely uplifting and happy I
will have all the students recreate a poem about a happy time or thing in their lives.
If there is a spot in the book where we as a class find the language to be cold, dark,
and tragic then we will take time discussing it and I will then have all the students
recreate a poem abut a very sad or difficult time in their lives.
 They will do this in groups, and then return to their seats and do it on their
own. This way, students are able to both share their writing and keep their writing
private. As a teacher, it is my duty to give my students an education in social settings
as well, not just isolated and confined settings. This strongly connects to a course
reading by Connie Kamii where she states that, “A classroom cannot foster the
development of autonomy in the intellectual realm while suppressing it in the social
and moral realms” (Kamii, NA). Students need to be able to express their emotions
in healthy ways and writing poetry is one of the safest, healthy, and most beneficial
ways to express ones emotions. By giving students the freedom to write about a
wide range of real life experiences I am giving them an enormous amount of choice,
but an enormous amount of responsibility as well. This ties into Alfie Kohn’s book
Beyond Discipline when he writes that, “The truth is that if we want students to take
responsibility, we must first give them responsibility, and plenty of it” (Kohn, 2006).
For my SDAIE techniques and strategies I will be using pictures frequently for
clarification and I will also use examples of words with lower level vocabulary in
order for them to understand what certain words mean. Idioms will be explained
thoroughly and repetitively in order to avoid constant confusion. All my students
will have quick and easy access to dictionaries and translation dictionaries as well.
This two-day lesson plan will help students express themselves and tap into a side
of themselves that they perhaps don’t visit very often, if ever at all. It will also
enhance their creativity skills and freedom, and it will show them how much choice
and creativity is offered to them on a daily basis.

Part Four – teaching philosophy

Some questions I have about my instructional practice relate mainly to how I

can make my behaviorist style of teaching into a more social constructivism style. I
am wondering how I can make subjects like grammar or Shakespeare more of a
social kind of practice, instead of having them just do worksheets and then getting
quizzed on them. I feel as if my students wont be inspired to be fully engaged in my
lectures when I am introducing complex grammar, or even theatre and how drama
is just as much a part of the English subject as anything else. I am wondering how I
can make these subjects that seem tedious and boring to high school students,
actually feel somewhat fun and informative at the same time.
I have noticed that my daily lesson plan is even more direct instruction than I
anticipated, and it is more of a behaviorist style of teaching than I thought it would
be. After realizing this I have decided to make many notes to myself and I am aware
of the changes I need to make now. I realized that almost half of my teaching style in
these lessons are pretty much lecture based, which is usually not a good sign. I have
realized that students are much more engaged when they come together as a group
to discuss what certain passages meant, and when they are doing activities together.
It is always extremely helpful when a teacher has a wide variety of activities that the
class can do. Students in all grade levels usually feel most distant and the least
engaged when they have to listen to the teacher talk for a long period of time or
listen to a classmate unconfidently speak about something the entire class was just
assigned. The times where students seem most engaged in class is when they can
get into groups and all come to different conclusions from the same information.
The main way I am going to try and get the type of engagement in my classroom is
to make it so my students can watch their classmates do some type of creative
presentation that is far from the normal mundane presentations that we are all used
to. For example, I will have my students work in groups up to three or four and they
can even work by themselves if they want to, because I feel as if it is not necessary to
force students to work with people when they really don’t want to. Once they are in
groups they will have the choice to create their own song based off of what we are
reading, recreate an event in whatever we are studying, write a poem and share it,
or even act out a scene in a novel or play that we have just finished reading.
I have also noticed that the class gets the most involved and engaged when a
teacher asks the class for their opinion about specific topics that we just went over,
and opening up the class in a social creative and calm manner. With this in mind, I
am going to strive for activities where students get to be as creative as possible. I
want them to be excited about writing, instead of making it feel like a chore that
they have to do. For example, instead of doing an ordinary five paragraph essay
(that doesn’t really teach them how to write, considering no one writes like that in
real life) they will be able to write a creative reflection about what we have just read
and learned as a class. Instead of having my class get into groups and present
regular boring power-points, I might assign them into groups and then have them
create a video, a real video on a camera will real people and real props outside of
class on their own free time, and within a week or two they can all present their
videos to the entire class as a whole. This way of assessment is so useful because the
students have lots of fun doing the assignment and I get see if they truly understood
what they just learned by their use of humor, staging, lighting, clothing, body
language, memorization, dramatic effects, and many other techniques. Creativity is
the key to learning, and so I am going to try to make every lesson that I do in my
classroom have somewhat of a creative activity.