TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
- What are your ideas and vision in education?
My teaching philosophy lies within an equation that when all elements are put together, it equals “learning for all” students.
“Content knowledge”/”Communities of practice” + “Inquiry-based teaching” / “Integrity” = “Learning for All”
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Content Knowledge ( To demonstrate in-depth knowledge of PE content)
Content Knowledge is a very important part of being an educator, especially within PE. It is vital that, as an educator, you know everything about the skills, movement, concepts and strategies that you will be teaching to your students. As a PE teacher, you need to know how to perform many different kinds of skills correctly, and how to play many different games and sports so that you can teach your students how to play multiple sports. It is also important that you know how to teach the different skills and sports effectively to your students so that they can take away the most from your classes. In doing so, you will be providing students with the tools so that there will be a greater chance of them finding and playing a sport that they enjoy throughout their lives which will help them to stay physically active and be healthy.
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Communities of Practice (Continue to grow as a member of and leader in professional communities and as a member of global society)
Being a part of a community of professionals is a vital part of being a PE teacher. Because of the way society is constantly changing around and new generations of people and children are different. It is nice to have others in your field that you can turn to for advice and ideas on teaching your students. A professional community would also be useful for giving other teachers new games and ideas that they have discovered or heard of that they could use or integrate into their classes.
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Inquiry-based Teaching (Systematically inquire into practice through, review, assessment and reflection)
As a teacher, knowing the importance of reflection after each lesson is critical to learning from your successes and mistakes. By using reflection, you will be able to spot these things and you will then be able to brainstorm in order to improve on your lessons and become a better teacher.
Assessment is also very important if you are a teacher. Not only it is a way to determine your students’ grades but it is also a way to evaluate your teaching and figure out if the way you are teaching your material is working if after assessing your students, the majority of their performances aren’t optimal, then it would be a very good idea to evaluate how you are teaching your students in order to find ways that may work better to teach them. You may also need to figure out if the way you are assessing your students is appropriate.
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Integrity (Model integrity and commitment to the highest professional ethics)
Teachers everywhere are expected to be held to the highest standards of professionalism. In any school environment, you must be a role model and model the best possible behavior for each student. Students must see and be convinced that you are dedicated to improving their learning and performance while also improving your own learning and performance while planning and implementing your lessons each day. Teachers must be able to hold themselves accountable for every action they take knowing that it is in the best interests of the students and fellow teachers. Teachers must also hold every student accountable for their actions each day and deal with disruptive behavior fairly and impartially, so that students will learn to exhibit their best behavior and better their moral standing.
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Learning for All (Assume responsibility for supporting and accommodating learning and development for all whom I serve)
The product of all of these factors combined will result in learning for all students. This is the end goal of my philosophy, as teachers, everything that we do must end with our students learning the information that we teach them in our classes.
If they do not retain this information then we haven’t succeeded at what we set out to do. We must always be on the lookout for new or better ways of giving our students the information needed to for them to be successful and gain knowledge.
- What is your subject specialization? How do you teach it and what did you achieve?
My subject specialization is physical education. Before I go any further on how I teach PE, I just want to share my points of view regarding this subject. Today, it seems as if PE is being left behind in the attempt to raise the scores in other subjects such as math or sciences.
In my opinion, PE is just as important as any other subject in the curriculum. Not only teaches students life-long skills on preventing and learning about healthy growth and development, but also teaches students’ social interaction and team building skills that they can apply later to any other career they may choose. That is why I place a lot of emphasis on team building activities in the lessons I teach. Whether related to a specific sport or to a specific part of the lesson (e.g. warm-up). These team building activities teach students how to communicate with peers, as well as planning ahead by utilizing strategies and the use of decision making skills.
Once students have learned proper team building skills, this will create a safe environment for the students to engage in any physical activity. I also utilize a lot of healthy competition in my lessons, whether individually, with a partner or as a group. This added competition factor motivates students to challenge themselves, which coupled with the safe environment promoted by the team building exercises will have an impact on students’ feelings toward failure; as they won’t feel discouraged from participating, as winning is not emphasized.
Whenever I assess students I try to grade them based on their participation, enthusiasm and rise in skill level and strength, not by their skill level. Grading students also by their rise in skill level and strength and not by skill at the end of the lesson, adds positivity and self-esteem for the student. I also utilize a lot of formative assessment strategies, such as self-reflection and peer assessment as an example; which I believe are extremely important as students’ become accountable for their own assessment and their peers.
I feel that as a PE teacher, it’s important to teach lessons that will meet the needs of all of my students, so that all of them can benefit from it. It is very important to be able to reach out low-skilled students, because those are the students who need the most guidance in physical education lessons. My teaching style is a combination of practice and self-check styles. This combination gives everybody a chance to practice and progress at a skill at their own pace. It also builds confidence and creates an atmosphere where nobody feels embarrassed in my lessons. I utilize learning stations and challenge-by-choice teaching strategies to benefit and create physically educated students.
"Winning doesn't always mean being first; winning means you're doing better than you've done before" It is something that I always emphasize in my lessons. Winning is great and enjoyable but it’s not everything. By accepting defeat, we learn more about self-confidence, which teaches us to never give up. Never give up educate us not to be frightened to lose.