Running Head: STATEMENT OF INFORMED BELIEFS 1

Statement of Informed Beliefs

Morgan Smith

College of Western Idaho

STATEMENT OF INFORMED BELIEFS 2

Statement of Informed Beliefs

Throughout a teacher’s career, a series of beliefs develop that define their ideas of

teaching. Teachers have endless learning opportunities when it comes to finding these beliefs and

the beliefs can change many times as the teacher learns. They can learn from their colleagues,

their former teachers, their students or even the mistakes they make along the way. An educators

informed beliefs come from information their learned and analyzed greatly to decide what it

means to them. Even going through college to become a teacher, my idea of what makes a good

teacher has changed. I’ve learned different ways students learn, how my expectations can affect

my students, the impact a community has on students, how to involve culture in my future

classroom and how I can effectively plan my lessons for every student I’ll have. Much like

many new educators, I haven’t had many experiences to define my philosophies, but research

can be my first step to deciding how I’ll lead my future classroom. As of now, my informed

beliefs are based on my research, classroom observations and experience working in special

education classrooms.

All Students Can Learn

Every student has a different way of learning. They can learn through visuals,

manipulatives, hearing the lesson or many other ways. It’s the educator’s job to ensure that as

many needs are met when teaching a lesson to a class. People are extraordinary in the fact that no

two people think the exact same way. Some people are more artistic and others are more

analytical. It’s important in the learning process for students to grow up and know what learning

methods learn best for them. When they figure out the way their mind works, then they can have

an easier time learning new things. It’s also a teacher’s job to help the students figure out their

learning methods. Every student can learn, but they have to figure out how.
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Some students may take longer to understand a subject, in this case the teacher would be

wise to spend a little extra time with the student one-on-one if possible. As an educator, teachers

should be able to tell roughly which learning style works for each student, and cater their

lessons accordingly. A learning style is a steady pattern of behavior and recital that a

student takes during educational experiences (Berns, 2016). A teacher might have to teach a

certain lesson a few different ways in order to maximize the amount of students that will

understand what’s being taught. Although it can seem redundant to the students who understand

right away, it will benefit them long term to solidify the topic in their minds. This will also help

the teacher to make sure the other students understand.

In my future classroom, I will make it my goal to try and reach as many students as

possible with each lesson. For instance, if we were studying a math lesson on addition and

subtraction, I would make sure to write the examples on the board as well as give each student

manipulatives to use when we discuss the problems. By doing this, I can reach students who are

visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. In more abstract lessons like English,

more specifically rhyming words, I could start my lesson by showing words that rhyme on the

board. I could then open the discussion to the class and write down words they think rhyme and

talk about those. Then I could pair the students up, give them pieces of paper with words on them

and have them work together to match the rhyming words. Every lesson can be taught in more

than one way. Even if the subject can only be taught one other way, it should be done because

one explanation might make more sense to a student then another.

Another way I would like to teach lessons is through the scaffolding method.

Scaffolding is where teachers provide support for students, but gradually lesson the

amount of support (Partnership, 2015). Students can help each other learn and provide
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feedback for one another. If we were doing a reading lesson, students could pair up and help

each other read a book and overcome difficult words. With scaffolding, a teacher pairs students

together based off of their knowledge of the topic. A student with more expertise would be

paired with a student who needs extra help. This can also help a teacher find their students’ zone

of proximal development, or ZPD. ZPD is the term coined by Vygotsky and refers to the

space between what a student can do by themselves and what they can do with others

helping (Berns, 2016). Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist that hypothesized that a

“more knowledgeable person, such as a teacher or an expert peer, initially guides the

learner’s, or novice’s, activity” (Berns, 2016, p.295). The pair use problem solving skills, but

the novice tries to work on their own while the expert corrects them in they need to. A teacher

can see what their students can do when they are working alone and compare it to when they

work with their peers. This can help me in the future so I can determine how to arrange my

lessons or how to help students who needs extra assistance.

Learning isn’t just about how a student can learn, but it’s about if they have the right

environment. A clean and organized classroom can help a lot of students feel safe and ready to

listen to the teacher. It’s important for students to feel welcome and safe in a classroom so they

are able to focus. A messy and unorganized room can cause a lot of distractions and waste time.

If students are looking around for a piece of paper or a pencil, they can waste precious

instructional time. In my future classroom I would organize it in a way that’s easy for students to

find supplies and put them away properly. A tidy classroom also makes a teacher’s job a lot

easier and more enjoyable. I might want to assign “End of the Day Jobs” to students to help me

make sure the room stays as neat as possible for them. A small detail I would want to put in my
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classroom if I can is the pencil sharpener in the back of the room. A class can be easily distracted

if they can stare at someone doing something interesting and loud, like sharpening a pencil.

In the end, everyone is different whether its students or teachers and we each have a

different way of learning. It’s important for the teacher to try and have as many learning

opportunities as possible for each of their students. It’s also important to keep a welcoming and

safe environment for students to learn and not be distracted.

Teacher Expectations
Teacher expectations are critical for a student. Students will act the way their teachers

expects them to act. In most cases, when teachers have low expectations for their students then

the students will perform low. If students know their teacher has higher expectations for them,

then they will work hard to meet them.

Expectations can be a silent tool for teachers to use to help their students do their best,

even without the teacher realizing it. If a class is treated with respect and pushed to do harder

things, then they will improve more often than a class that isn’t pushed. Children need to be

challenged in order to make it to the next step of learning. They won’t be able to improve if they

aren’t taught harder and harder subjects. Once they excel and grasp one topic, they should be

moved onto the next difficult topic.

It can sometimes be possible that a teacher falls into stereotyping their students they can

have low expectations. Stereotypes are oversimplified depictions of a certain group (Berns,

2016). Some teachers may believe that boys are disruptive and need to work hard to control their

outbursts. If they don’t control them in a constructive way, it can cause the boy to become

guarded and emotionally withdrawn. Other stereotypes could include family income. This is
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called classism, which is the different treatment of people based off of their social class

(Berns, 2016). If a teacher has a student in a low income household, they might treat them with

less respect. They might have low expectations and treat them as less superior compared to the

other students. When students take longer to answer a question, the expectations of the teacher

can determine how they respond to the student. If they believe the student isn’t very smart, they

might not allow the student enough time to think. On the other hand, if a teacher has high

expectations for a particular student then they might think that the student is taking longer to

think because they want to gather their thoughts. Neither of the teacher’s reactions are

necessarily correct all the time and it’s unfair of them to treat the students differently.

Stereotyping can also pertain to specific ethnicities. If a teacher believes that Asian

students are smarter than everyone else then they will treated unfairly and have unjustified higher

expectations. It can be tricky for some teachers to notice they are favoring one group of students

over another. They hear about how their students are before they even meet them. They receive

test scores, family and health information and information from their past teachers. It can be

difficult to put all that aside when getting to know a student for the first time. It’s important to

always step back and evaluate whether they are failing the class by having low expectations, or

helping them by having higher expectations.

Educational goals are set to ensure students have improved in a year. They can show the

skills and attributes the students should have after completing a course, program or grade.

Educational goals should be reevaluated and set often to make sure the students are on track and

the road to success is beneficial for them. If a goal is set too high, the students might feel like

they have failed and become discouraged. If a goal is too low then the students might not make

as much growth as they could. Smaller goals can be made as a pathway to a larger goal. It can be
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a step-by-step process where students can succeed often and feel proud of themselves. Without

an objective to work towards, a classroom can be a waste of time for the class. There are

standards to be met to prove that the students have learned the appropriate skills or show what

still needs to be worked on.

Whether it’s high expectations or big educational goals, teachers have an important task

to guarantee they are fair to their students and help them succeed to their best ability. Low

expectations can hinder a classroom, while high expectations can boost morale. A teacher must

determine what needs have to be met for their students that year.

Student’s Social Ecology

People can be greatly influenced by the environment around them. Family and the

community can define a child’s self-image and way of learning. Student’s social ecology

determines who they are and it’s important to incorporate that as much as possible in the

classroom.

A student’s ecology refers to the relationship between a student and their

environment (Berns, 2016). If children have a positive relationship with the environment they

grew up with, then teachers can use this to their advantage and have a deeper impact on their

students. A lot of what children learn before they head off to school can be learned from their

family or from the community they grew up in. It can be more beneficial for a teacher to

embrace these influences and build on their lessons than to ignore them and start new. Most of

what defines a person is what they learn when they aren’t technically learning. They can sit in a

classroom and be forced to learn new information, but they can learn more when they experience

life on their own and watch those around them. If students are raised in a quiet home, they might
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be quieter when they arrive at school. Similarly, if a student was taught to be outspoken, that

lesson will carry over into the classroom. Teachers are able to choose to harness what the

students learned at home or to neglect it and move on. Students will be more interested in

learning if they know their teacher cares about them and their home life, not just how they are

doing at home, but the things they learn while they’re there. If lessons are planned to relate to the

students and their social ecology, then they’ll be more likely to listen and retain it. It can also be

easier for students to learn a topic if they can relate it to the outside world.

Not only can connecting a child’s social ecology to learning make it more fun for

students, it can also make it easier. Families, cultures and communities are what shape a young

child’s mind. Families are the first people to impact a child’s learning. Cultures are behaviors,

traditions or ideas that are learned through the characteristics of an environment a child

grew up in (Berns, 2016). Parents teach small children independence, how to use the bathroom,

how to control their emotions and ask for help. They are the primary teachers to their children

before they are able to attend school. Culture and religion can influence children and teach them

about obedience and faith. In many religions, children are taught strong morals and values that

most of them keep for the rest of their lives. Different cultures can have different effects on

children and a teacher should be able to respect those differences. A teacher can also go above

and beyond and celebrate the differences in the classroom which can teach diversity.

Communities can teach children about togetherness and the importance of helping others or

working together towards a common goal. Each piece of social ecology can be used to teach

many variations of the same lesson. A teacher can take advantage of the lessons their students

learned outside of school and teach different deviations in their classroom to create a smaller

community. They can also extend the lessons they taught in the classroom, such as math or
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science, to the home, and a family can further expand their child’s knowledge. It can be

advantageous to have families get involved with their children’s learning. On some occasions,

students will be more interested in topics if they can go home and have a family that’s fascinated

in hearing about what they learned. This can help children be more excited about learning.

A students morals can be developed in different ways, and it’s important for a teacher to

know if it’s through religion or any other way. Jean Piaget believed morality is “the

understanding of and adherence to rules through one’s own violations” (Berns, 2016, p.

471). Their morals are formed based on their social associations, rules, laws and their authority

figures. By understanding where my students’ morals come from, I can help them take their

lessons home with them and continue to motivate them about their lessons and homework.

The lessons that families, cultures and communities teach can be brought over into the

classroom. Even if some students don’t have the same upbringing, they can learn from each other

if the teacher is able to bring them together effectively.

Cultural Diversity Instruction

History is a major subject in schools, however, textbooks can sometimes interfere with

what some cultures teach. Most classrooms will be culturally diverse in some way, and this can

cause teaching to be trickier, especially history, but also way more fun.

With a classroom full of students, no two will have the same upbringing as another. As a

teacher, it can be crucial to use the lessons the students have learned from home and bring them

into the classroom. When it comes to a culturally diverse classroom, a teacher should

acknowledge the students differences and teach the class. I think this can come in handy a lot

when teaching history. If the topic of the history lesson is about the natives who lived in that area
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first, it could be beneficial to ask the families of your students if they have any knowledge of the

history. Sometimes these families had parents or grandparents that’ve taught them the history.

Instead of sticking to a textbook, it can engage students more if they can relate what they are

learning to their own roots, or to the roots of their peers. Peers are people who are around the

same age, gender or social status who share the same interests as one another (Berns, 2016).

It’s important to celebrate every culture when a teacher can. It creates trust with the

students and can boost self-esteem, which is how much value someone places on their

identity (Berns, 2016). Some students might not have the chance to learn about different

cultures except in the classroom setting. If teachers are able to celebrate the cultures in their

classroom, they can create inclusion and acceptance to their students. This can be extremely

constructive in the future for the whole world. If people are taught at a young age to include

others, ask questions about their cultures and accept everyone, then it can be a better world. I

believe it’s fair for teachers to ask for clarification from students or from their parents. When I’m

a teacher, I would want to learn more about my students’ backgrounds and get their families

involved with teaching myself and my class. It would be a fun lesson to have any family come in

and teach the class about their culture. Having a small lesson on different cultures can cause the

students to have open minds, and to teach them that it’s okay to ask certain questions about

culture.

Many families in America practice cultural pluralism. This means that a minority

group participates in the leading society, but also preserves their cultural differences

(Brandon, 2005). They practice their religion, beliefs and morals. Different groups can interact

and tolerate each other even though they are a part of different cultures. The minority groups are

still encouraged to sustain their customs. Whether the culture is Asian, Latin American, African
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American or Native American, they still are able to practice whatever they like as long as it goes

along with the laws. On the other hand, cultural assimilation is where a person or group

culture starts to resemble another group (Berns, 2016). An example of this would be where

people are rude to different cultures and telling them they are in America and have to speak

English, not their native language. This is a forced assimilation and causes the victims to feel

guilty for their heritage. This could also be where immigrants start to change how they dress and

act because they are living in a new country. Connotatively, cultural pluralism is more accepting

than cultural assimilations.

Most classrooms throughout America have a variety of different cultures. This allows

many teaching opportunities for the students. They can be able to teach their peers about their

heritage, or learn from their peers. This can open multiple doors for these students. Many of

these students also have to deal with cultural pluralism or cultural assimilation. These families

are accepted and encouraged to practice their difference, or they learn to conform to the

dominated culture.

Curriculum for all Learners

The world is full of diverse individuals with different cultures, but another difference is

how a person learns. The educator has the vital task to determine how their students learn and

what they can do to help them be successful.

Teachers will base their curriculum off of how their students learn. Curriculum refers

to the goals of a program, the teacher’s part, the items that’ll need to be used and the way

they are organized (Berns, 2016).When I’m a teacher, I’ll want to keep in mind that my lesson

plan can change drastically based on the students’ prior knowledge or if they aren’t grasping the
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concept. Having multiple sections of the lesson where the teacher can assess how their students

are doing is crucial. If a teacher does this, they will be able to modify the lesson on the fly.

Sometimes teachers might need to move on from a part of the lesson quicker because the

students are understanding, other times they might have to explain a part a little more. It can be

favorable to plan around as many scenarios as possible. I might want to provide harder problems,

easier problems, more visuals or more hands on activities. By doing this, I can have a variety of

tools on my belt in case I need to change my lesson plan.

Checking on the students’ understanding can be a key part of a lesson. It allows the

teacher to determine what level their students are at and where they should be. I believe that a

pre-assessment can be useful before most lessons. A teacher can be able to see which students

know anything about the subject and which ones might need extra help. This also can help the

teacher decide where the lesson should go. If the class has a decent understanding, then the

teacher might not need to explain a lot during the lesson. Similarly, if a teacher does ongoing

assessments then they can see how their lesson is going. Maybe the students are understanding,

or maybe they need guidance in a different direction. Ongoing assessments can help decide how

to change the lesson up. A post-assessment can show how much the students grasped at the end

of the lesson. This could tell the teacher if their lesson plan was successful or needs more work.

They can then use this information to plan more successful lessons in the future, or change up

their original lesson plan if they have to.

To ensure that students are improving their knowledge in my classroom compared to

when they first stepped in, I would want to first learn how they learn. At the start of the school

year I could hold small tests that would help me get an idea of how each student likes to learn.

Depending on the age, a written poll could be taken. The poll could ask the students if they
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prefer to listen, see or have hands-on lessons. For younger students, I could watch them the first

few days and see what methods of learning they gravitate towards. When adding simple

problems do they count on their hands, speak quietly to themselves or solve it completely

mentally? Knowing where to start when teaching each type of learning style can help a teacher

help their students.

When students feel confident in themselves, they will be more receptive to the lessons.

By providing different methods of solving a problem or giving a lesson in different ways,

students can find which way works best for them and this allows them to not feel discouraged

when they can’t understand a lesson. I believe that a lot of students stop wanting to go to school

because they don’t feel confident in themselves. They become discouraged when harder lessons

are introduced. To make sure each student improves, I would want to maintain their confidence

and give them plenty of opportunities to succeed.

A major thing I want to make sure I do in my future classroom is make accommodations

for students who have disabilities. An accommodation is a term used for mental adjustment

to ones environment by the integration of differences of experiences (Berns, 2016). Students

who have disabilities have a lessening in the functioning of a certain body part or organ, or

its absence (Berns, 2016) and they might need extra help when learning new things. I would

want to make sure they were comfortable in the learning environment and with asking questions.

Sometimes a student might need extra time to do an assignment, they might need to play with a

fidget toy, or sit by themselves where there’s no distractions. These students might have different

individualized goal structure which means one student’s goal is separate to other students’

successes of that goal (Berns, 2016). They have their own goals they need to work on and it can

differ from other students. These goals could be better social skills or learning to stay focused for
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longer periods of time. I want to make sure every student feels their best to be able to learn in my

classroom.

No matter the learning style, it’s important for students to feel confident in themselves

when they are in school. A teacher must assess their lessons and adjust in order to reach the

different learning styles.

As I’ve begun learning more and more about what it means to be a great teacher, I’ve

discovered my beliefs of how I can create a productive classroom. Much like other educators, my

teaching philosophies will change the more experiences I have and the more variety of students I

meet. Whether it’s the different ways students learn, how my expectations can affect my

students, the impact a community has on students, how to involve culture in my future classroom

or how I can effectively plan my lessons for every student, the more I’m immersed in this career

the more I’ll be able to accurately alter my teaching philosophies. Based on information from

what I’ve researched in my classes, observed in classrooms or experienced in my job as a

paraprofessional, my beliefs have been shaped accordingly, but I’m eager to experience more in

order to refine my informed beliefs.

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Reference

Berns, R. (2016). Child, family, school, community: socialization and support. (10th ed., pp. 295,

471, 499-503) Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Brandon. (2005, July 15). Cultural Pluralism. Retrieved from

https://www.allaboutreligion.org/cultural-pluralism-faq.htm .

Partnership, G. S. (2015, April 6). Scaffolding Definition. Retrieved from

https://www.edglossary.org/scaffolding/.