Personal Educational Philosophy

In order to have a proper education, most students need an interactive educational

experience in a school setting, surrounded by fellow students and teachers that can serve as role

models and guidance when needed. As teachers, we are meant to be more than lecturers in our

respective subjects and course materials. We are called to get involved in the community and in

the lives of students not just in the classroom, but out of it as well. As a result, teachers should be

seen as authoritarian figures who simply want the best for their students and their community.

I spent seven years of my academic career in a magnet program setting, specifically from

sixth-grade to twelfth-grade. While I learned a lot academically, I had one major takeaway from

that experience: there is always more than one angle to approach learning. I was in a STEM

program and I found myself struggling with my math classes. I persisted, and yet barely passed

these classes until I figured out that math did not click for me because I approached it “wrong”. I

was taught a single method of how to approach math problems, and that was the biggest issue. I

self-studied every night, going over my math notes, exhausting myself until I realized that I was

trying to teach myself a way that did not work for me, similarly to how my math teachers over

the years taught a single method of how to figure out a problem. I changed my way of thinking

and how I studied after this epiphany. I considered different methods and found which ones

worked for me. Because of this, math eventually became one of my highest grades my senior

year of high school compared to my lowest. This was largely due to the fact that I implemented

different methods in how I studied and asked for help more than I did before, just to make sure

that I truly understood what I was learning.

I bring this story up in order to explain one major belief that I have: that students have

different learning preferences. In order to improve my poor understanding of math, I had to take
a different approach from what other students were being taught. I want to try to diversify my

teaching style to encompass as many learning preferences as possible so that the students that I

teach in the future have a chance to not run into a similar issue in my class. The main learning

preferences in students reading and writing, with kinesthetic being the next preference in

students (Alkhasawneh et al., 2008). Because of this research, I want to incorporate both into the

classroom. During my field observations, I watched as the teacher at [SCHOOL], [TEACHER],

allow students to walk around and take their own photos to use in their assignments. While I

would not be teaching photography, I want to be able to incorporate something somewhat similar

in the classroom. I personally find being able to interact with what I am learning to be helpful

rather than just sitting back and taking notes, and I know that many students in the future will

feel the same way.

Everyone has different biases. This is a fact of human nature. In the classroom, biases are

dangerous as they can lead a student to be less successful in the classroom. As a former magnet

student, I had a slight bias towards such students, believing that magnet students were inherently

better than public school students and some private and charter students. I am still working on

decreasing and hopefully getting rid of these biases. An article that I read regarding bias written

by Guy A. Boysen talks about how, despite college campuses becoming more and more diverse

as time goes on, racial biases continue to exist in the classroom. In order to combat bias, I want

to further educate myself on different groups of people in the world so that I can come to

understand them better and reduce biases as I would have done due research on the different

groups.

As a teacher, I want to implement Bloom’s Taxonomy into the classroom. As a future

history teacher, I need to ensure that students do not see history as a class that is solely based on
rote memorization, but as a subject in which critical thinking is not only encouraged, but

required. According to researchers under the Association of American Medical Colleges,

multiple-choice questions can be applied to most levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Writing

higher-order questions for multiple-choice would challenge how students think about history and

what they would need to consider when thinking about history critically. By implementing this

into the classroom, students will be able to view history from the critical lens that I aim for them

to.

My main goal in the classroom, outside of successfully teaching the students the material,

is to give them a place where they feel like they can come into the classroom and feel

comfortable with their environment. I want my classroom to be a place of learning, not just in

terms of the content, but also in terms of personal character. I want to encourage people to talk

about their opinions on what happened in history, even if the students disagree with each other,

and be able to facilitate a discussion on different historical events. If students feel like they can

safely share their opinions, as long as they are not discriminatory, I would consider my

classroom to be a successful learning environment. I strongly believe that, with enough effort

and different methods, students can learn any subject.

My observations at [SCHOOL] also provided a first-hand look at how students that

struggle with the material can get help by either asking their peers or the teacher. I noticed, on

my third observation, that the students collaborated more when they felt comfortable in the

classroom. The students worked more efficiently and were not afraid to ask their peers for help

when needed. One student specifically asked another for their opinion on how to angle their next

camera shot. This culture of knowing when to ask for help is a culture that I want in my own
classroom in the future, so I will add assignments into my lesson plans that allow for students to

talk to each other and work on them together.

I also want to welcome students from different cultures and be very open about how

much I value their backgrounds and experiences. As someone who moved from one country to

another during my educational career, I understand how much of a struggle it is to try to

assimilate into a different culture, especially when you also need to learn a new language. I

empathize greatly with immigrants, such as myself, and I want to emphasize just how important I

think it is that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed in the classroom. I want to put an

effort into learning at least the basics of many major languages and, if there is a language barrier,

I want to try to remedy that as best I can. International students in all levels of education usually

find it difficult to make the adjustment from their home country to their new country (Tucker

King and Bailey, 2021), so I want to try to make it easier for them to adjust by trying to give

them a little bit of their home in the classroom.

Students usually feel more comfortable talking to their peers, either in pairs or groups,

compared to the teacher or in front of the whole class. Not only did I experience this

phenomenon when I was in high school myself, but I also witnessed it when I observed the

classes at [SCHOOL]. Students slowly spoke up more when they were around their peers. Their

conversations went in-depth with the topic at hand and I want to facilitate these types of

conversations in my classroom, especially when going over historical events in my class. I would

also use whiteboards, similar to my [EDUCATION] class, so that I can get a quick read on how

much the students know and how much information they retain. I most likely would use the

whiteboards to see how students thought individually, how they thought when in a group, and

how their thinking changed after they saw what the other students said. Racial and cultural
differences may prove to be an issue, however, in group work (Seric and Pranicivic, 2018). In

order to combat such differences, I want to fully explain the cultural background of every single

group of people that we would talk about in that class on that day so that students are more aware

of what would be considered offensive and not. It would also, hopefully, decrease stereotyping

and discrimination in not only past groups but in present groups as well.
 References

Alkhasawneh, I. M., Mrayyan, M. T., Docherty, C., Alashram, S., & Yousef, H. Y. (2008).

Problem-based learning (PBL): Assessing students’ learning preferences using vark.

Nurse

Education Today, 28(5), 572–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2007.09.012

Boysen, G. A. (2012). Teachers' Responses to Bias in the Classroom: How Response Type and

Situational Factors Affect Student Perceptions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,

42(2), 506–534. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00784.x

King, C. S. T., & Bailey, K. S. (2021). Intercultural communication and US higher education:

How US students and faculty can improve: International students’ classroom experiences.

International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 82, 278–287.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2021.04.007

Seric, M., & Pranicevic, D. G. (2018). MANAGING GROUP WORK IN THE CLASSROOM:

AN INTERNATIONAL STUDY ON PERCEIVED BENEFITS AND RISKS BASED

ON STUDENTS’ CULTURAL BACKGROUND AND GENDER. Management (Split,

Croatia), 23(1), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.30924/mjcmi/2018.23.1.139

Zaidi, N. L. B., Grob, K. L., Monrad, S. M., Kurtz, J. B., Tai, A., Ahmed, A. Z., Gruppen, L. D.,

& Santen, S. A. (2018). Pushing Critical Thinking Skills With Multiple-Choice

Questions: Does Bloom’s Taxonomy Work? Academic Medicine, 93(6), 856–859.

https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002087