TEACHING
Philosophy
As I open the next chapter of my path as a teacher, I have reflected on my sense of accomplishment in teacher education. That being said, this in no way feels as the end of something. That is because one of the most important lessons I have taken from my education is it never ends; for growth to continue, change must remain a constant. “A growth mindset about intelligence is the belief the intellectual abilities are not fixed but rather can be developed, for example through hard work, good strategies, and help and mentoring from others”(Dweck and Yeager, 2020). Thanks to the Droichead and Cosan programmes there is support knitted into the continuum of teacher education that will help scaffold these goals that I have set. Education will always be evolving and I don’t plan on becoming a teacher with outdated practices and beliefs. I will also benefit from the cyclical nature of teaching in the honing of my craft. I look forward to having an open door and forming a professional community within the environment of the school. I also will maintain the community that has been founded in my PME, who can provided more diverse perspectives from around the country.
My background in Graphic Design Communication has given me a few valuable tools that I plan on using in the classroom. The most recognizable feature of graphic design is creating through technology, this can be incredibly useful for creating presentations and teaching prompts for students. This is ideal for a 21st century classroom. But the discipline of graphic design on a deeper level impacts the way we understand communication. Semiotics is the study of symbolic communication, but really it focuses on how we absorb and learn from the world visually. I believe this is an area to be explored within education (one I intend to research next) where we can investigate how to more efficiently represent learning visually as an aid to understanding.
“If we are serious about preparing students to succeed in the world, we should not require that they memorize facts and repeat them on demand; rather, we should provide them with opportunities to interact with content, think critically about it, and use it to create new information.” (Razzouk et al. 2012)
Additionally, a prominent feature of the graphic design discipline is conceptual thinking. I chose this as the focus of my research report within the course. A large issue in art education is the conflict that lies between conceptual and creative development, and the skills based side of the art room. While this may be somewhat obvious on entry into art education, it becomes a divisive topic the further ones goes into education theory and perspective. I leave this course with the opinion that my aim is to facilitate learning and not to teach facts. In the same vein, I aim to concentrate the art room on creative thinking and conceptual understanding. Skills based learning still playing a role, but no longer dominating. I believe through my research that the benefits of this methodology will best prepare students for contemporary workforces, in addition to a better general ability to create, invent and solve problems. My research gave me great insight into how much your values and skills as a teacher can be honed by staying informed with contemporary literature and theoretical perspective.
“Make no mistake, the curriculum we prescribe for schools and the time we allocate to subjects show children what adults believe is important for them to learn... The allocation of time to what we teach has other consequences as well. The amount of time allocated to a field of study influences the kinds of mental skills children have the opportunity to acquire.” (Eisner 2005)
My classroom is a holistic environment that focuses on the student. It asks of all it’s stakeholders, ‘what are we trying to do here?’, and acts to validate those endeavours through success criteria. I plan on focusing my assessment practices towards formative practices that can inform all involved where adjustments and support is needed. While I am new to the profession, I believe an NQT has the advantage of a highly informed and contemporary perspective. I lean towards discovery led learning and a student centred classroom all under the umbrella of constructivist theory. “Only when learners have ‘made sense’ of the topic like this will they be able to reason with it to solve problems” ( As a result, I believe the student and teacher should have strong communication and transparency in the planning of units. My research allowed me to see the value of structuring a project but also including the student in planning. By giving a student more autonomy, they can take ownership of their work and inherently find more meaning in their learning. These things underpin successful deeper, rich learning experiences that have a more long term affect on the developing mind.
This website acts as a portfolio, in which these values and beliefs are portrayed through artefact. It also exists as a working document that I will continue to update as well as use as a reflective tool to engage with my journey through teaching.
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REFERENCES
Dweck, C., & Yeager, D. (2020). A growth mindset about intelligence. Handbook of wise interventions: How social psychology can help people change, 9-35.
Eisner, E.W., 2005. Reimagining schools: The selected works of Elliot W. Eisner. Routledge.
Petty, G. (2014). Teaching today: A practical guide. Oxford University Press-Children. 5th edition.
Razzouk, R. and Shute, V. (2012) What is design thinking and why is it important?. Review of educational research, 82(3), pp.330-348.
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