Daniel Reilly

Professor LoMonico

CEE 593

7 December 2005

 

Philosophy of Teaching

 

There are various reasons why I want to become an educator.  Throughout my life, I have had instructors who inspired me to improve myself both intellectually and beyond academics.  I am eager to make a difference in the lives of today’s youth by encouraging them to do the same.  In order to gain these opportunities, it is necessary for them to develop certain skills, and there are many reasons why I believe I will be successful in aiding them.  The time I have spent as a Marine has permitted me the opportunity to instruct young adults, and understand how to help them excel.  Furthermore, I have acquired a great understanding of the educational system by growing up and living in a variety of places.  These circumstances allowed me to explore many different approaches to teaching.

            I am fortunate to have had numerous instructors who have inspired me throughout my career as a student.  At a young age, I admired many teachers for their ability to provide support and encouragement in the academic area, as well as patience and care for the personal development of their students.  As I grew older, I began to think about my own career path.  I became accustomed to studying the techniques of my educators in order to gain a greater perspective of diverse teaching styles.  As I found myself more and more interested in my instructors, I came to the realization that teaching is the right path for me.

It was not until college that I met an instructor whose skills I truly aspired to attain.  Dr. Bente Videbaek has motivated me with her dedication to teaching throughout her thirty-two year career.  Her enthusiasm, love for her students, and devotion to education still remains intact.  Dr. Videbaek is always willing to work with students on an individual basis to aid them in improving their skills.  I have found this help invaluable and plan to make myself available to my students as much as possible. 

Professor Videbaek is not the only educator who has inspired me to teach. Professor Dolan has also taught me what it means to be a great educator.  Although the workload he expects from his students does appear daunting at first, after careful evaluation, I realized that he was merely pushing us to our true limits.  I did not recognize how beneficial his teaching style was until the end of the semester.  A year later, I am still able to recall almost all of the information he taught during his class.  The ability to push students to reach their potential is a gift that Paul Dolan undoubtedly has, and one that I aspire to attain.  Helping students realize their capacity for learning also improves their self-education skills. Professor Dolan and Dr. Videbaek, along with many others, are part of what has encouraged me to become an educator.

Even before entering college, my life as a Marine has afforded me the opportunity to instruct and understand how to help young adults succeed in life.  With impeccable training, I was able to attain the rank of Sergeant in less than three years.  I was assigned to be an instructor at a Marine Aviation School in North Carolina.  As a Sergeant, and instructor, I was expected to accomplish many tasks.  Primarily, I was to insure the welfare of my Marines.  I was in charge of 267 young adults on a daily basis.  I was responsible for protecting both their professional and personal lives.  After a few months of trial and error, combined with guidance from prior instructors, I was able to accomplish this goal.  While at the Marine Aviation School, I taught in a classroom atmosphere that is parallel to those that are found in high schools today.  This afforded me the opportunity to become comfortable with teaching.  Through this experience, I have attained some of the necessary skills that are needed by educators in the school systems of today.

Teachers have a great opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students by helping them grow and develop their skills.  I think I would be most effective teaching young adults because they are so impressionable.  Adolescence is the period during which students create the foundation for the rest of their lives.  It is the careful construction of this foundation that determines the development of a student’s mind. Many students become overwhelmed with feelings of self-doubt during this time.  However, if an instructor gives the students the proper support, they will have a greater chance to succeed.  I want to be there for students and understand their specific needs in order to help them.  I believe I have the ability to make students want to learn and strengthen their foundations.

Successful educators have many common attributes, such as outstanding organizational skills, dedication to their students, and the ability to handle a multitude of different learning styles.  Most important, however, is their ability to encourage students to teach themselves, which allows the students to reach their full potential.  Teachers must enlighten, inspire, and motivate.  They need to get involved in the lives of their students.  A successful teacher makes students feel good about themselves, and more importantly, makes a lasting impact.  I know this to be true because teachers have done these things for me, and their positive impact has made me want to become an instructor.

Education is a fundamental part of adolescent development.  In today’s world, one will find it nearly impossible to lead a successful life without an education.  Motivation and caring are vital to a student’s education. It is the responsibility of teachers to educate the students; by doing so, they are granting their students valuable information that will allow them to achieve many goals throughout their lives.  Many instructors have prevented me from straying from the correct path.  I want to instill confidence and self-discipline in the students that I teach so that they will have the ability to accomplish as much as possible.  I understand that these traits do not come naturally to an educator. However, my caring for students and dedication to improving the minds of young adults, combined with the experience I gained in the Marine Corps, have helped me to attain them.

My teaching philosophy has not changed since my entrance essay.  However, I have added to it over the course of my first semester in Graduate School.  I have read many articles about teaching over the course of the last five months that have afforded me the opportunity to view various teaching philosophies, as well as other teaching aspects, from a number of different authors.  After reading these articles, I have developed a love for the process approach, which, for the most part, I will utilize in my classroom because I believe it is the most beneficial to the students.  Thanks to authors like Anthony Grasha, I am now able to select teaching styles that will help students achieve their goals.  Although I already knew that students learn in different ways, thanks to authors such as Patricia A. Dunn and Kathleen Dunn De Mers, I have learned about universal design.  They taught me how to develop lessons that cater to the needs of all students, and that these lessons must be designed in a universal way from start to finish in order to produce the best results.  Articles by authors such as Vivian Zamel have helped me understand the problems that many L2 learners have in the classroom, and how to solve them by utilizing various methods that have worked in the past. 

The semester that I took Methods II also enhanced my teaching style.  During this semester, I learned how to introduce and use technology to the fullest extent in the classroom.  My Methods II professor, Mr. LoMonico introduced us to a plethora of ways to implement technology both in and out of the classroom.  With ideas like webquests, weblogs, discussion boards, and various other kinds of online multimedia, I feel that I am far better prepared to teach in today’s classrooms.   Without the help of Mr. LoMonico, I am sure that my use of technology and performance in the classroom would not have been utilized to its maximum capacity.

Although the core of my teaching philosophy stands firm, throughout this first semester of Graduate school, it has been enhanced by the knowledge that I have gained.  I understand now that creating a teaching philosophy is not a simple task.  Furthermore, I believe my viewpoint will change and develop into an improved philosophy by the time I am ready to teach secondary education.