Running Head: MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 1

My Teaching Philosophy

John Moyer

Regent University
MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 2

My Teaching Philosophy

Early on in my college education, I had a more idealistic teaching philosophy. This

consisted of giving students more freedom in an effort to show them respect, in the hopes that the

students will reflect said respect back. However, having experienced two practicum placements

and having begun my student teaching, I have revised my personal teaching philosophy. The

specific reasons for the revision includes: the need for stronger classroom management, the need

for structure in the classroom, and the need to meet content area standards in a timely manner.

When dealing with classroom management, having a good rapport with the students is

paramount to getting the students to listen and respect the teacher. Building this strong

foundation through non-academic conversations with the students can allow the teacher to have

an authoritative relationship with the students. This means that not only will the students feel

loved, but also that they will realize my high expectations of them. Both of these will result in

students that behave more respectfully and students that are more willing to do their work.

My philosophy on classroom structure has changed greatly. Instead of trying to set aside

time for the students to socialize every class, I will focus my efforts on building a consistent

schedule instead. If the students come to expect a certain order of events in the classroom, the

students will be able to achieve more, as transition times will decrease as well as chatter because

of said transitions will also decrease. Secondly, building a consistent system of spiral reviews

and testing in a consistent way will not only allow me to better differentiate instruction, but it

will also build up the students’ confidence to do standardized tested from desensitization. Finally,

a consistent structure of both positive and negative behavior interventions will allow the students

to receive the proper feedback from their behavior whilst minimizing the amount of confusion

from the consequences they received (positive or negative).

MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 3

Finally, I will be placing a greater emphasis on the content area standards of whatever

subject I am teaching. At the beginning of the year, I do expect to fall behind while I am building

up my rapport with the students, I do expect to catch up on saved time later on. By having a

focus on the pacing of the mathematic content, the students will be able to get all the content

they need for the standardized testing. This, in addition to the consistent reviews and testing, will

give me as many tools as possible to pull small groups and help scaffold content by carefully

selecting groups for cooperative learning.

Overall, I feel that my teaching philosophy is based around having an authoritative

relationship with the students that will help create the proper expectations and give students the

best chance at being able to fulfil the expectations I set out for them.