Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Michele Costabile Doney

To develop a philosophy of teaching is to focus on my role as an educator and define what is important about it. I find that my role involves three principle activities:

1. To continually strive to develop a broad array of teaching skills and adjust them to meet the needs of my students.

2. To truly challenge my students and to evaluate them honestly and fairly.

3. To foster student mastery of course material while at the same time helping them to develop broader, more important skills such as communication and critical thinking.

To some extent, I have been able to develop my own teaching skills based on my experiences as a student. I remember the instructors I liked as an undergrad and the things about the classes they taught which made them positive learning experiences. Some types of lecturing styles made material interesting, while some put the whole class to sleep. Some alternatives to lectures, such as small-group discussions, labs, and question-and-answer sessions, worked well; others flopped. Some types of exams really tested how much I'd learned; others simply seemed to test how fast I could write or how adept I was at spotting trickery. Some assignments reinforced my understanding of material or allowed me to explore parts of it in greater depth; others seemed of little value. From all of these things, I learned what makes for a positive, beneficial learning experience, and I strive to incorporate these things into the development of my own teaching style.

I am mindful, however, that not all students learn the same way I do. Furthermore, not all students come to college with the same amount of preparation and level of skill. The face of the student body is continually changing, and I must adapt my teaching style to change with it in order to accommodate the ways in which my students learn. College students in science are increasingly female and members of minority groups. In addition, they are increasingly nontraditional, often older with full time jobs and families to support. As the value of a high school diploma continues to decrease, larger numbers of people enroll in college, and as a result we see more underprepared students.

A key aspect of any educator's professional development involves becoming aware of the impact of cultural differences on learning styles. To that end, I have taken a course on mentoring in a multicultural setting and participated in a videoconference on African-American issues in community colleges. To accommodate students whose schedules may be filled with personal and professional obligations, I have held review sessions at night and scheduled office hours on weekends. To keep the lines of communication open even to students who are shy about speaking in person, I make myself available through email. I have replaced some of my lecturing with exploratory projects, question-and-answer sessions, and other alternative types of instruction. Similarly, I write exams with a variety of question formats, including essays, short answer, multiple choice, and the use of figures to give as many students as possible the chance to shine.

In the past, I have found that nearly the same percentage of my class will meet my expectations no matter how high (within reason) I set them. Conversely, I have also found that no matter how low I set my expectations, the same percentage of students will fail to meet them. With these things in mind, I think a major part of my role as a teacher is to truly challenge my students and help them rise to the level of that challenge. For example, in comparative anatomy lab, students are expected to master a large body of material. By stressing the importance of learning the meanings of the Latin and Greek roots of anatomical terms, I enable my students to decipher functional and locational information from anatomical names. Knowing that every time they see "ren" it means kidney, students are able to understand renal arteries, renal veins, adrenal glands, and so forth, and to truly appreciate the interconnectedness of the body's organ systems. Students have told me this makes learning the material easier and much more meaningful. A more general example would be holding extra office hours and review sessions scheduled at a variety of times to accommodate as many students as possible. Offering these enables students who need it to seek additional, more individualized instruction.

Assessment of student performance is a key aspect of teaching, and it is absolutely essential to employ methods of assessment that are honest and fair. Inflated grades do not reflect achievement, nor does grading on a curve. A straight scale, published in the course syllabus and reflecting appropriate expectations, allows students to gauge their performance at any time during the semester, and emphasizes that a student's achievement is her own, regardless of the performance of other students in the class-something particularly essential in small classes where the distribution of earned grades is less likely to resemble a bell curve. I will scale grades up after a course is completed if there is a compelling reason to do so. However, consistently awarding artificially high grades throughout the semester "to make the students happy" leaves them believing that the level of mastery they have achieved is higher than it actually is. Truly meaningful self-esteem grows naturally from a sense of achievement; fostering students' self-esteem should complement pedagogy and assessment, not compete with them. Similarly, failing to penalize academic dishonesty only ensures that it will happen again, and this is clearly detrimental to the student in the long run, not to mention unfair to the honest students in the class.

Fostering the mastery of the course material and related skills is obviously important. However, of equal or greater importance is the development of more broadly applicable skills such as communication and critical thinking. It really does not matter how much knowledge a student possesses if she cannot communicate her ideas effectively. The same is true if she cannot think critically about what she knows and

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