Teaching philosophy

 The pragmatic aspect of teaching philosophy is often contrasted between Inquiry and Direct Instruction. The objection to Inquiry approaches is the non-conformist or individualism of the approach which delimits the use of Direct Instruction which tends to put many students in a situation of incomprehension. The prior knowledge and skills of each particular class of students is a necessary factor to determine the trade-off between Inquiry and Direct Instruction, or how much guidance is appropriate

One of the significant consideration for understanding the learner, and thus deciding upon a particular teaching method at the moment under the social-political context of daily life in the classroom, is to define motivation. In past Motivation was considered an attribute of the learner. Now, motivation resides in the interaction between the learner and the subject matter, so the teacher focuses on what the relation may be between the student's dispositions and the particular subject matter the teacher wants learned. It is ultimately the learners who make choices about how to construct knowledge.

 Kuhn in her article (Is Direct Instruction an Answer to the Right Question) states that

we need to focus our attention on what sense students are making of things. The key to improving learners’ performance is examining what it is that they are undertaking to learn, what they think it means, how they construe the meaning of this material in relation to themselves, and whether they can see it as worth learning.

I value students’ centered approach in teaching. Being a lecturer I believe that The role of a professional educator, like any other professional, eliminates love, hatred, blind faith, submissive attitude, emotional, and personal elements from the classroom, especially today when casteism, capitalism, racism, sexism in its many forms, bullying, social class distinctions, etc., can be so disruptive to a particular cooperative setting.

Really our personal teaching philosophy only becomes important to the parts of a program for which we are responsible and they must fit in to the organisational needs, how we teach has to be pragmatic. If your teaching very large groups it very much limits your options but its a good idea to consider the assessment process as a part of the teaching, it focuses the student’s attention and always consider the learning outcomes these tell you what you want to achieve, good outcomes should be measurable so putting something in about evaluating sessions is a good idea.

This means before you start you know what you want to achieve and know how you’re going to check if you've achieved it. You’re going to have to match this to your particular needs

I'll try to give an example, one of the programs I lead was for people who already had a professional qualification and who worked in mental health. It was around developing skills in Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy. In the specification document in the teaching and learning section, I put;

As psychotherapy itself can be described as a process of social learning.  It is useful to utilize teaching and learning strategies that are congruent with the theoretical and philosophical ideas underpinning the chosen model. Therefore, to facilitate learning, a range of approaches, consistent with Cognitive and Behavioral theories and practice will be used to inform the methods of delivery.

Initially the strategies are designed to facilitate the development of the knowledge structures or cognitive schema's that will underpin future learning. To facilitate the learning of a wide range of ideas, early in the course much of the content will be delivered using didactic teaching techniques, with some individual supervision to link the content of the modules to their practice. Over the length of the course the students will need to elaborate on these knowledge structures in terms of depth or level of learning and breadth of knowledge. This will be facilitated by more student centered, practice related content used to focus discussions and review by the whole group. As students will be from varied backgrounds in relation to their profession, area of practice and previous learning experiences, the use of their past and current experiences will be an important part of this learning process. Skills development will require an increasing use of role play. The assessment process will reflect this increased emphasis on practice informed by theory

The techniques used will reflect the view that learning is a developmental process and that methods to facilitate learning should reflect the student’s particular needs at the different stages in this process.