Teaching Philosophy

[Scientist 0]

I am in a program called "Preparing Future Faculty" and as part of the program we have to make a teaching portfolio. Its basic purpose is to show off to potential employers how well we can teach. One of the components must be our teaching philosophy, and I was thinking about what to write. Does anyone here have any thoughts about the philosophy of teaching? Just some random thoughts I have been having while working on this... I feel that there is a big difference between teaching and learning; teaching is something that the professor does, but learning is something that can only happen through the actions of the student (regardless of how good my teaching is, if a student doesn’t want to learn or is not interested then he won't learn.) I think my job as a teacher is to help my students with their learning process as much as possible, and additionally assess the level of learning (in the subject I am teaching) they have achieved. My personal policy when teaching a course is not to take attendance; if a student doesn’t want to be in the classroom then forcing them to be there will have little influence on their learning. Well, that is just a few of my thoughts on the subject, we still have a month to think about it, I just wanted to know if there are any teachers here (or anyone else!) who has any thoughts on the matter.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Well, that is just a few of my thoughts on the subject, we still have a month to think about it, I just wanted to know if there are any teachers here (or anyone else!) who has any thoughts on the matter.

I have a lot of thoughts on the matter, but limited experience. You might want to pose a question to The Montessorian on her "Ask the Experts" forum. She has an academic background in both philosophy and psychology, and although her teaching specialty has been primarily in the area of Montessori (up to eight grade), I am confident that many of the principles she had learned and employed apply equally well to higher level education. She has developed a very successful school over the past 13 or so years, with enrollment of about 300 students.

p.s. If you read the marvelous answer that The Montessorian gave to the question I asked on her forum, that should be enough to motivate you to ask her.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

[...] Does anyone here have any thoughts about the philosophy of teaching? [...]

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I am neither a teacher nor a philosopher, but perhaps I can make an initial suggestion: Think about what "philosophy of teaching" means. You know what teaching is, but what does "philosophy" mean here?

The phrase is similar to philosophy of science, philosophy of law, or philosophy of history. In each case "philosophy" in this usage refers, not to the universal body of knowledge which is the foundation for all knowledge, but to the fundamentals of a particular, specialized field of knowledge -- the fundamentals of the study of physical science, law, or history, for example.

So, the question then is this: What are the fundamental principles of teaching?

In other words, what broad abstractions should condition the actions of any teacher?

You have already started to answer by identifying some of the existents (the "metaphysics") always involved in teaching: a teacher and a student. What are the "epistemology" and the "ethics" of teaching?

[JMR 0]

... I feel that there is a big difference between teaching and learning; teaching is something that the professor does, but learning is something that can only happen through the actions of the student  ...

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There is a difference, but it is not as big as you may think. Dr. Peikoff has said that one of his techniques (for both teaching and writing) is to think back to the state of his own mind before he learned a certain new thing, and introspect as to what kinds of explanations and examples would have made things clearer to him. So in that sense, teaching is just retracing your own learning process. But of course you can't put yourself on auto-pilot, because your context when you learned it might differ from the context that your students have today, and you don't know what confusions your students may have that you didn't have, etc. You may only be able to discover these things through their feedback.

(I am not a teacher, but I been in that role in a couple of non-professional, informal situations such as when I taught physics to high school students in a program at the Boston Museum of Science. I kept the above approach in mind and things worked out very well.)

... (regardless of how good my teaching is, if a student doesn’t want to learn or is not interested then he won't learn.) ...

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True, although don't forget that motivation is your job, up to a certain point at least. It is every teachers' dream to have a classroom full of self-motivated students--but don't expect it, and don't be too quick to write off those who aren't as being "lost causes."

[Betsy Speicher 0]

True, although don't forget that motivation is your [the teacher's] job, up to a certain point at least.  It is every teachers' dream to have a classroom full of self-motivated students--but don't expect it, and don't be too quick to write off those who aren't as being "lost causes."

Definitely. An "unmotivated" student my be like Francisco:

"What for?" It was the first question he asked about any activity proposed to him—and nothing would make him act, if he found no valid answer.

It is much easier to feed someone when he is hungry and that also applies to supplying knowledge. When a person NEEDS to know something and WANTS to know something, he will dig into a subject and devour it -- with or without a teacher's help.

The assumption in any rational interaction is that it should be to everyone's self-interest. If a teacher is convinced his subject is useful and important to his students, the FIRST thing he needs to communicate effectively are the reasons WHY.

[DavidOdden 0]

I think my job as a teacher is to help my students with their learning process as much as possible, and additionally assess the level of learning (in the subject I am teaching) they have achieved.

Your teaching philosophy emerges after you have been teaching on your own for some years, so that course requirement is kind of a trick question. I think you've identified the two most important functions, and I'd say you present them in the correct order, in terms of importance. But there's more to be said about a teaching philosophy (i.e. "theory of how to teach"). Students learn best by doing whatever it is you're teaching (rather than memorizing things that will be on an exam which they will then forget), so most of the emphasis of your teaching should be on analytic method. Students also need to understand that there are basic facts that they need to know (self-evident in physical sciences but elsewhere we have to work against the myth that it's all bs'ing); and they need to know how to clearly communicate their discoveries to others. Whether or not this fits your temperment or subject matter, I find that students learn the best if there is an expectation that they will participate in class (especially if you can get students to argue with each other); and I try to make the most frequently asked question in class be "Why...". I also think that teachers should occasionally step outside the narrow bounds of the discipline, for example so that they understand what "Occam's Razor" is about. I teach them why they can be certain of some things (a lot of them think "you can't be certain of anything"), even though it's not strictly (or loosely) part of the subject matter of the course.

While I've never taken attendance, I make it clear that a lot of stuff happens in the class which is not in the textbook, so if you don't come to class, there are consequences (in that you won't know things of be able to do things that were covered in class because frankly the guy you're copying notes from is clueless). I am also absolutely merciless when it comes to late homeworks (save for documented death in the family), and politely intolerant of requests for extra credit assignments. The underlying point is that you should make it clear to students that they need to take responsibility, though you shouldn't harp on that.

[GMartin 0]

"I just wanted to know if there are any teachers here (or anyone else!) who has any thoughts on the matter."

Dr. Peikoff's lecture series "The Philosophy of Education" contains excellent ideas on teaching, techniques of motivating students, and many useful approaches to making the materials being studied more understandable and graspable by students.

I would also recommend Miss Rand's "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology", especially the first four chapters dealing with Percepts, Concepts, Abstractions from Abstractions, and Concepts of Consciousness.

These concepts of how knowledge is formed are a great aid to the teacher in taking new material and essentializing it for presentation to students for the purpose of learning.

Glenn Martin