\\ \ ie Eldridge 1 Tyler Eldridge yy h Robert Shkorupa ; f Edu 202-3001 ve AR 21 October 2015 \y tf Philos as Portrait of Myself When we grow up and attend school, we often fail to look deep inside ourselves to figure * out just who we truly are and what we believe. For me, I have tried hard to take a look inside to.” discover just who Iam, who I want to be, and just how all of that ties in to my learning style and ~ future teaching style 1 do not simply want to be a teacher who teaches unimportant lectures to” uninterested students. What I want is to contribute to a better world through being a strong * individual that engages people in a way that they too can contribute to someday. The years following my graduation from high school have been a time of reflection and - self-discovery. My high school years were mostly centered around getting from one assignment * to the next while still finding time to play video games and spend time with my girlfriend. The focus was never truly on, “who I am”. My reflections on who [ am are what led me to declare my * major as secondary education. I have a deep passion for social sciences, particularly history, and * a desire to contribute to society in a meaningful way. This naturally made teaching appealing, Beyond my love of my chosen subject matter, I want to help students become better citizens by * applying lessons of the past to today’s problems. My desire to teach comes from a natural yearning to acqui new knowledge from the world around me. Through learning and tenchin; the world moves forward if even in just a small way. One trait I find particularly useful for my future career in teaching is my ability to stay level headed when I am helping others. I like to help people and see the bright look on their faces when they learn or do something new.Eldridge 2 ‘Talking about me leads to the conclusion that I want to be a teacher. So when I ask the question, “Where do I want to be in 5 years”, the general hope is in a classroom teaching students. The reality is that I have taken a path where I work full-time as a cook and can only take so many classes at a time. This is not required for me to have a decent living but it gives me * independence and a sense of pride knowing I am developing skills and supporting myself. My « \ ‘general hope for the next 5 years is to continue my education at a steady yet responsible pace so 1 can obtain my bachelor’s degree in secondary education from UNLV. Outside of my career goals, I hope I can have a home of my own with my fiancée (soon to be wife es also be nice to be traveling and seeing the world I claim to love to learn about. ee As I reflect on myself, I begin to take a deeper look at how I lea, Learning styles are special ways in which we take in information and begin to understand it. Three special factors contribute to learning styles with those being physiological factors, affective factors (also known * as attitude factors), and cognitive factors. When I think of my physiological factors, I realize that" 1am physically impatient and fidgety. I love to move around and interact with my environment * when I learn. Long periods of dull sitting quickly erode my ability to lear and engage with * content, During my field observation, the ability to get up and walk around amongst the students helped me engage and stay focused. I also require a cool and comfortable environment to learn in or I may not do well. My affective factors a complex issue. I pride myself on taking responsibility for my actions and not making excuses for poor performance, but the fact that have performed poorly reflects poorly on my motivation. My lack of motivation ties back jn to my impatient physical nature and for me shows a lack of interest in engaging with my studies. The final factor for me, cognitive domain, seems to be based largely around visual learning. To * earn and engage with topics outside of my main interests (my current biology class being aEldridge 3 Si ar example) I need to be able to read, see diagrams, maps, charts, videos, to fully understand something. Kinesthetically, I require only the ability to be able to move around at will while auditory learning for me is largely ineffective. An interesting side note with my lack + of interest in auditory learning is that I feel my own ability to effectively speak to groups or an individual is weak. * Looking at how I learn leads to how I think I should teach. When analyzing my preferences based on a quiz. from the class textbook, I came to some interesting conclusions. My most “preferred” method was social reconstructionism. I am a firm believer in equality and working towards addressing societal ills. The quiz made me realize just how important I think social issues are because I firmly believe in the idea that schools should be a place where citizens © are born and societal ills are tackled head on. My second highest score was in progressivism” which emphasizes teaching practices that involve engaging students with the real world. I feel that student education should go beyond simply remembering facts and figures. Lessons should bbe applied to the real world here and now and help students understand why we expect so much from them. To help them achieve and understand the world around them, students need to be * directly engaged and responsible for directing their own education and seeking to work not just inside a classroom, but also in the world we hope they contribute to. These two methods , combined with the time tested methods of essentialism and perennialism plus some elements of existentialism are what I believe will make a great teaching style for my future career. ‘The time since I graduated high school has afforded me a great opportunity to reflect on ‘who I am, where I want to go, how I learn, and how I want to teach. ‘The short time I have had just in this class including my volunteer and observation time have helped me dig deeper than * ever before. have started to form a general goal for my life that focuses on the idea of servingEldridge 4 others and building a better society if even in just a small way. I want to be finishing my ‘education in the next few years while developing my personal learning styles while figuring out * how I want to teach so that my students can receive the best education possible. I hope that my level-headed personality combined with a love of learning help to push me forward and help my students reach their own goals.