Teaching Philosophy

I believe that the purpose of education is to not only teach students the subject matter, but to
help them grow as people. I love math and want my students to have this same passion for it, or at least
an appreciation for it. Many students have the mindset that you must be a ‘certain type of person’ to be
able to do mathematics and I want to change this mindset. My purpose of teaching math is to reveal to
every student that they can be successful in math and enjoy it. Everyone has the ability but we, as
teachers, don’t always do the best job of utilizing that ability. My way of accomplishing this is that I will
make my classroom based around student thinking and their ideas. Getting the students talking about
and thinking through mathematics in groups helps bring light to their ideas and their ways of thinking.
Every student has something different to bring to the table and collectively they can help one another
understand the topic. This can sometimes be better than me lecturing at the front of the classroom or it
can supplement it. Along with this, having students explore mathematical ideas in groups allows them to
form a connection with the mathematics. They will be able to explore ideas on their own and have a
more meaningful connection with what we are learning in class. There is a time and a place for lecturing,
but there should also be made time for students to explore on their own. Knowing that every student is
different, I must incorporate everyone’s background, ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, etc., into my
teaching. I will incorporate these into an activity at some point in the school year so that every student
feels represented and appreciated. For example, if we are talking about trajectory motion and patterns, I
might take time out of the lesson to mention Dorothy Vaughan, an African American mathematician
who worked for NASA, and discuss the impact she made, not only for women in science and
mathematics, but African Americans as well. I believe that bringing up and discussing these historic
figures will encourage those in my classroom where it seems the world is against them in mathematics
and bring them comfort and hope for their future. This will help lead to an open and more inviting
classroom, so students feel free to be themselves and appreciate the diverseness not only of
mathematics, but those who contributed to it as well.

I also think that many teachers and students focus on getting the answer right. With all the
testing that there is, that seems to be the only logical assumption because if you don’t get the answer
right you fail the test. On the other hand, this thinking leads students to be afraid to raise their hand to
ask or answer a question in class. Looking further this outlook makes students afraid of being judged
both by their peers and their teacher. This prohibits learning more than anything else. My goal is to
center my classroom around the thinking that goes behind an answer rather than the answer itself. I
want to offer my students praise for their thinking rather than the right answer. I believe that praising
students for their effort will pay off more in the future regarding motivation. If students are constantly
praised for the right answer alone, they will end up feeling like a failure if they get one wrong answer
and will be overcome with pressure to get the right answer every time. Instead, if I were to praise for
the effort behind a problem the student would see that the fact that they tried is an accomplishment in
and of itself. Pointing out good effort, I believe, will lead to more motivated students who want to
expand their knowledge rather than memorize for a test. In my classroom tests will be given to evaluate
the students learning, but they will be tests where I can see the students work and effort that they put
into a problem. After all, even the most prestige mathematicians still make algebraic mistakes every now
and then.

All in all, my teaching philosophy is to try and give the students the best education they can get,
while growing as people, in my classroom. I will implement a student-centered classroom where the
students are leading most discussions and I am facilitating the conversation. I will have a classroom
where everyone feels free to express their opinions and no one feels judges because of their race,
gender, intelligence, etc. My classroom will be one that focuses on students’ efforts rather than
correctness and hopefully build a generation of students that can appreciate mathematics.