Statement of Beliefs About the Teaching Process
My philosophy of teaching is grounded in constructivism and I believe an inquiry approach provides the best avenue for accomplishing my objectives. Everyone constructs knowledge based on his or her previous experiences in life. Students bring a wealth of facts and information into the classroom every day. As a teacher, I use my knowledge, skills, and creative energies to design learning experiences that will enable students to form linkages and make connections between what they already know and what I want them to learn.
A constructivist approach requires that I minimize the use of teacher-centered instructional strategies and maximize the use of student-centered activities. While I feel that direct instructional approaches may be useful, I believe that they don’t take full advantage of instructional time because they do not require total student engagement. A student has only a short time in which to construct knowledge with my help during class, therefore, I must present material and topics in a way that enables students to engage completely and actively in their learning, think logically and carefully about their experiences, then draw reasonable and defensible conclusions from what they’ve learned.
By providing students with appropriate learning experiences, they are able to construct knowledge that is accurate and persists in their memories for many years. Everyone learns best by doing, and in my classroom, my students learn science by doing science.
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© John Yogus, 2004. All rights reserved / [email protected] / Revised 3/3/2004