Identifying your Teaching Style/Philosophy

Background

As we kick off a course that is going to focus on teaching and learning related to programming, I think it is vitally important that you begin to reflect on your beliefs about teaching and learning in general.  I'm actually a firm believer that the best teachers are the ones who actively think (and RETHINK) about their beliefs regarding teaching and then plan their instruction based on those beliefs.  As such, I want to help you start your way down the path of becoming a "Reflective Practitioner"   To do that, I think it is helpful to start this course by having each of us (me included) explicate our beliefs about teaching and learning.

[Explicate is a fancy word meaning to "analyze and develop an idea or principle in detail"]

In this activity you will begin by reflecting upon, and documenting, your beliefs about teaching and learning. This document will be used heavily as we move through this course.  It will become a building block for many of your later reflections.

Please note, beliefs are highly personal. They are neither right nor wrong, true nor false. They (should) guide our behavior as teachers. Sometimes we find that our stated beliefs are inconsistent with our behavior. Both beliefs and behavior can change if we allow it. This activity gives us a chance to identify our beliefs and perhaps change our behavior with respect to teaching and learning programming.

Reflect

To begin, JUST REFLECT.  Don't write anything yet other than brief notes to yourself.  My questions below are meant to stimulate thinking and are NOT to be seen as a list of things you have to explicitly answer at this point.

Begin by thinking about your experiences as a student in school.  Start as far back as you can remember (kindergarten?  preschool? ) and continue all the way through your most recent class(es) at UNI.  Include not only your regular K-12 experiences and undergraduate experiences (including your teacher preparation courses) but any situations where you have learned something such as in a dance class, or a summer science camp, or when your grandma taught you to make her famous chocolate layer cake. 

I want you to reflect on what you think it means to be a learner.  Some questions you might consider as you think back on your experiences as a learner:

• When (or HOW) do I best learn?
• What things help me learn?
• What kinds of things do I learn quickly?  Why?
• What kinds of things do I learn slowly?  Why?
• Are there things that are necessary for me to learn a new skill/subject?
• What makes a subject "learnable" ?
• Is it possible to learn a subject you don't like/enjoy?
• Is it possible to become skilled at a subject you don't like/enjoy?

Now, I want you to think about your teachers:

• Who was your favorite teacher?  What did he/she do that made them your favorite?
• Who was your least favorite teacher?  What did he/she do that made them frustrating?
• In general, what do teachers do that help you learn?
• What makes a good teacher?

Write

Each individual is asked to prepare a report of their beliefs about teaching and learning with a discussion of the rationale for each. The rationale should explain why the belief is included, i.e., the basis in theory or practice for the belief and why/how it is useful. This is personal, i.e., we may disagree and that should not matter so long as you adequately describe the rationale for the belief.

This is a hard document for which to prescribe a format.  Just as there are multiple legitimate beliefs about teaching and learning, I think there are multiple ways to structure/organize those beliefs. Therefore, I simply ask that you take this task seriously.  Discuss what you think it means to be a learner (both from your observations of students and your self-examination of yourself in classes like this one).  Discuss what it means to facilitate that learning as a teacher (both from your observations of other teachers and from your own experiences in the classroom).  It may be very hard to get started (or not depending on your personality).  But I think that it is worth taking the time to reflect and respond at this time.

I do not like to "prescribe" page lengths to assignments like this.  Especially one that is open ended and very personal in nature.  However, I suspect that this should be a minimum of 3-4 pages double spaced and could easily be 5 or 6 depending on what you say and how you structure it.  If you find yourself "done" after only barely two pages, you likely haven't put into this the thought I am expecting.

Submission

• You should write this document before you meet in your small group this week.
• I strongly encourage you to share it with your groupmate(s) prior to the meeting.
• However, you do not need to submit it until after your small group. This will allow you to fix, modify, change, or completely re-write based on what you discuss.

I will be grading this on purely a 1/0 basis.  You get credit for submitting something "on time" and that shows that you put time and effort/thought into crafting a meaningful response. 

I do not see there being any right or wrong answers in this activity.  Similarly, length of your answer does not necessarily correlate with the quality of your answers.  Instead, I will be looking to see if you have considered a broad set of ideas/concepts for this reflection and will be looking at the clarity with which you have crafted your response(s).  This includes things like spelling, grammar, formatting, etc.

Please submit this via Blackboard by the end of the week.