Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

Mark Lyons
EDUC 5123D Educational Psychology
February 25, 2016
Instructor: Chris Treadwell

Philosophy on Teaching and Learning

Teaching was never something that has come naturally to me. There are days where I will
become frustrated and feel like I am on the verge of ending my career, while there are days
where I feel confident and self-assured. Once I am in a classroom with young students I feel
more at ease because I can communicate with them that I am still a learner. From here I do not
describe myself as an expert but as an individual with a head start on what they are learning. This
way they develop respect for me as an advisor and realize that I am still on the path as student in
my own studies. Experts are rarely born and usually are developed, so in time I will become a
teaching expert through years of practice and study.
As I begin my career as a teacher I am bombarded with numerous methods and ideas. The
main idea is not to focus on what I need for teaching methods but instead on what my students
will need, what content they will focus on, and how they will learn to learn. It is important to
keep in mind how I define needs and learning. I feel that needs being something a student must
have, while learning is their development and reflection based on what they experience. In this
case I identify with Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, which elaborates on the needs of individuals.
This looks into physiological, safety, love or belonging, esteem, and self-actualization needs that
students all require to function. If were to see a student who suffers from low self-esteem I would
look for their strengths, basing this on their interests, and reinforce this in my lessons in order to
build up their confidence.
Personally I believe that all students have strengths and are capable of multiple
intelligences in some form. Like Gardner has mentioned I know that students are capable of
multiple intelligences. I feel that sometimes these intelligences are correlated, such as if a student
is verbal and linguistic, exceling in writing and speech, they may also borrow elements of
interpersonal and logical intelligences to create debates on pressing issues. With this in mind it is
important to integrate subjects and topics together rather than keeping them as separate entities.
As a high school student I found chemistry and biology to be boring, but with physics I was able
to relate this to my interest in math.
When I say that I found chemistry and biology boring I do not mean that those subjects
are uninteresting or useless. Today I enjoying learning more about both subjects, but my
experience with those courses was based almost solely on a textbook and many of my mentors

used very little resources outside of the text, rarely connecting those two scientific areas together.
Some of my peers were fine with this but I believe that accommodations are needed for each
student in the class. Connections and purpose are need in a classroom setting and I want
communicate with my students that they will have a choice in direction for what they want to
learn. This will be done through group and individual conferences with the students, helping
provide feedback for the students and help them see the reason why they are learning certain
topics.
With this in mind I want help students control their own motivation, since I will be
advising students on what paths to take with tasks, assignments, and assessments. Deci has
mentioned students have different values in certain areas, with some being motivated by grades,
rewards, or acceptance. Since I have experience teaching prior to my philosophy statement I
know that I will not always develop close or warm relationships with every student. I have
learned that a students self-determination can be improved by being connected with other
students in a classroom. Students can influence each other and pinpointing students who have a
positive connection can create a sense of belonging, both socially and academically. From here
students can create a scaffold for each other, influencing how they deal with the environment
around them and how they direct their own lives.
Still every student at some point will need scaffolding or modelling from a teacher. I do
not intend to have my students depend on me for learning but instead provide them the necessary
support for building a foundation of independence. Vygotsky taught me that for every student I
will need to learn the difference between what the learner can do without help and what they can
do with help. It is important to measure this with each individual student in order to know when
to give the student their own learning space and also understand when they will need
collaboration to learn in a classroom.
This is all easier to state on a paper document than to put into practice but my
experiences with students continue to motivate me towards this philosophy. After dealing with
students who struggle in a class I became very moved when I was able to meet with their needs
and improve their outlook on learning. There will always be students that will help me see this,
so in return the least I can do is help them find their strengths and set them on the path to use
their weaknesses as a chance to learn from their flaws. A student who changes this way will also

change me, not just into an expert educator but into a legendary teacher. In my times of doubt I
will always think of these experiences I have had with my students, allowing me to remember
what good they have continued to do after I was their mentor.

References
Daniels, H. (1996). An introduction to Vygotsky. London: Routledge. Retrieved from:
http://unb.worldcat.org.proxy.hil.unb.ca/title/introduction-tovygotsky/oclc/32925091&referer=brief_results

Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple intelligences: New horizons. New York: Basic Books. Retrieved
from: http://unb.worldcat.org.proxy.hil.unb.ca/title/multiple-intelligences-newhorizons/oclc/782935711&referer=brief_results

McLeod, S. (2007). Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved from:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Tran, Nhu. (2014). What is Self-Determination Theory?. Retrieved from:

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/self-determination-theory/