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VEK
Guest
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« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2004, 06:42:07 AM » |
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Dear M,
Here are some general yet useful tips:
Your philosophy-of-teaching statement should reflect your personal values and the needs of your students and your department. You would certainly want your students to learn the fundamental content of the courses you teach. But beyond that, do you hope to foster critical thinking, facilitate the acquisition of life-long learning skills, prepare students to function effectively in an information economy, or develop problem-solving strategies?
What is your role in orienting students to a discipline, to what it means to be an educated person in your field? How do you delineate your areas of responsibility as compared to your students' responsibilities? In what specific ways do you want to improve the education of students in your field? Are there discussions in academic journals or in professional organizations about shortcomings in the education of students today or unmet needs in the discipline and do you have ideas about how to address those shortcomings and needs?
Your statement of objectives as a teacher is the most important part of your teaching philosophy, and you should take some time with it. And if you take it seriously, you will probably come back to this statement to revise or add to it. Think of it as a work in progress.
When you have a clear idea about your teaching objectives, you can discuss methods that you use to achieve or work toward those objectives. Here is where you can display your knowledge of learning theory, cognitive development, curriculum design, etc. You will want to explain specific strategies, techniques and exercises you are planning for future courses. You will want to tie these directly to your teaching objectives and discuss how each approach is designed for that purpose. If one of your objectives is to develop problem-solving skills, then you will probably want to test your students' ability to solve problems. In that case, discuss how you construct problems for them to solve, what skills those problems are meant to evaluate, and the level of performance that you are seeking.
What, to you, are the great and wonderful rewards of teaching? Why is teaching important? How do you want to make the world or at least higher education better? How do you want to make a difference in the lives of your students?
Be sure to mention your teaching interests: the topics you would like to teach, including the ones you are fully prepared to do tomorrow morning, and also the ones that have always interested you, which makes you think that you could probably prepare them fairly well in a short period of time, taking into account your already gained skills.
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