My Teaching Philosophy
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Post 224
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?
While these may sound like simple questions, the answers may not be so
straightforward.
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Laureate Education (2013)
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Education could be reduced to a simple equation in which 50% is provided by the
Instructor (teaching) and the other 50% is supplied by the Students (learning);
without this catalytic symbiosis, education may not take place properly and
then effectively. Learning is then an autonomous journey anyone is meant to
take part of in order to shape his/her knowledge, understanding of the world or
his/her working environment. 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 since deep learning is part of their
way of being and can help them become better learners. Life-long learning is
what inevitably happens once my students are away from my virtual or physical
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. And, all of the sudden,
learners get to realize that their skills are metamorphosing into competencies
they can exploit in their current or future jobs.
When my teaching is over, I would like
my students to have developed all sorts of competencies to become excellent
teaching professionals, competent educators who can face their teaching life
professionally and ethically. I really want my students to develop their whole
potential to see them using technology in their classroom wisely and
ecologically, 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. And in turn, my current learners in
education will start to prepare their future pupils to succeed in their jobs-to-come
by broadening their potential with good planning techniques, innovative
teaching strategies, and an open-mindedness that can help them embrace the
challenges of their futures cleverly.
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 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 in 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.
And now the burning question: What’s
your teaching philosophy?
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
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