MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING

By Ancy Radhakrishnan

I view teaching Social Studies as one of the best opportunities to serve society by helping my students to better understand their surroundings, their fellow human beings, and to enrich their lives through the resulting knowledge and insights. My teaching philosophy can be summarized into the following six points.

First, I believe it is essential for successful teaching that I sincerely care for the students and maintain a healthy relationship with them. Thus, I learn not only all my students’ names and faces but also their personal interests and academic goals and their strengths and weaknesses involved. I always listen to their concerns and problems and make myself available by telephone, by e-mail, or in person for whatever help they need. I also make it clear to the students that I cannot succeed in my teaching without their success in my class.

Second, I know that explicitness and fairness in my expectations and their implementation are always appreciated by the students. Thus, I clearly state and explain what my students are expected to achieve in the class, what to do before coming to class, how to do each assignment and project, and how to prepare for quizzes and exams while explaining relevant rationales whenever needed.

Third, I emphasize active learning. I encourage my students to think actively and critically through the question-and-answer process and continuously motivate them to seek their own answer by asking questions for themselves. I also strive to make every activity in the class, including quizzes and exams, conducive to learning subject material and to develop critical thinking.

Fourth, I realize that each of my students is unique and therefore I attempt to respond to different learning styles and to accommodate different abilities. Thus, I make a conscious effort to present lessons in various forms, incorporate many real-life examples into my lectures and class discussions, and encourage active class participation, while always making sure that every important point is clear to all the students before going over to a next point. Besides these, I extensively use Power Points, Movies, documentaries and internet to make the lessons interesting, easy and enjoyable one for my students. As for those who need extra help, on the other hand, I know helping them out in a patient manner is always worth my time and energy.

Fifth, although I stress learning itself rather than achieving a good grade in my class, I also understand how important good grades are to the students. Thus, at the very beginning of the quarter, I encourage each of my students to set a very specific, practical but high-aimed goal and continuously monitor and discuss their performance on a regular basis in order to help them attain their goals. As for evaluation, I not only maintain a clearly stated, objective grading policy which reflects each student’s performance but also try to find as many fair opportunities as possible for rewarding students for their honest effort.

Finally, I believe that my professional growth is another essential factor for continuous success in my teaching. Thus, I do my best to be at the cutting edge of recent scholarship in order to inspire students with new aspects of inquiry. I also make a great effort to improve my teaching by seeking feedback from students and peers, attending teaching workshops, and reading and experimenting with new methods and approaches. Through these evaluative and enriching processes, I continuously refresh my passion and enthusiasm for teaching and learning and refine my teaching practices, thereby growing both as a teacher and as a scholar.