Philosophy Statement

I believe that everyone has a place in the educational world.  I suppose you can say I believe that everyone has a divine right to be educated.  My philosophy over my years of teaching has changed its view slightly as technology has changed.  I aim for the success of all students and I give equal chances to all students, no matter who they are.

I meet the standards of the curriculum in my district each day that I instruct my students.  There are rubrics set in place for such things as reading writing, and technology in my district.  Each day, I try to follow these rubrics in some way so that the students can get the most out of their education.

Coming from the new generation of learners called the "Net Generation" (Bennett, p 776) born between 1980 and 1994, I lived in an educational system that was semi-immersed in technology.  As I went through my schooling, technology was as its growing stages.  By the time I reached high school, computer labs were surrounding me.  I worry about our students now and how they have grown up in an educational system completely immersed in technology, yet having teachers that know less than they do.  Many of the teachers try to use these technologies, but do not know a lot about it. (Bennett, p 778).

I plan to give the students choices and let them have a chance to discover and learn new things that interest them the most.  If that means using the internet to find fun videos on factoring or using graphing calculators to show the slope of a line, then I will do whatever it takes to show the students different techniques and ideas.  Every students learns differently and I will speak to the visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learners.

In teaching mathematics, there are so many ways that you can learn one concept.  I am always prepared to teach concepts in different ways so that all of the learners in the class have a chance to understand the concept.  I always try to give the students chances to work together to help each other.  Oftentimes students can explain topics in different ways than I can.  When they work together in small groups, they explain topics in different ways and understand each other in away that I could never interpret.  When the students leave class understanding the concept, they leave with a feeling of achievement and are grateful that they did the work themselves.

The technological breakthroughs have brought my teaching to a whole new level.  When I began teaching, I had a piece of chalk and an eraser.  I now teach using a SMARTBOARD and internet access.  When the SMARTBOARD is not working, I feel like my entire lesson is completely washed out.  For some of the newer teachers in the "Net generation" not having technology for a lesson can be life altering.  Using the technology every day in class keeps my students engaged.  I use this technology as a reward, offering the students credit for coming to the board (they truly do get enjoyment from feeling like the "boss" of the class for a few moments).  I also look up videos to engage them in some of the more tedious topics that we do go over in mathematics class.  When they see these fun things, I inform them that these are videos and topics they can look up at home or on their own devices to gain a better understanding if needed.

With new initiatives such as BYOD coming forth, students will be hoping to use these devices inside and outside the classrooms.  As a teacher, I agree and disagree with the initiative.  There are time where I wish each student has a device (such as when I do not have enough calculators), however, when I see students texting and not paying attention in class, then I wish that the BYOD did not exist.  Is it all worth it?

In conclusion, I have noticed a great shift in my teaching and my philosophy of my teaching.  It has changed due to the technological divide.  Will all of the teachers jump on the technology train?  Or will we leave some of these teachers behind?  Are the students of each generation always going to know more than we do about technology?  I guess I still have a lot of questions that need to be answered and I will have to wait for the future to find out the answers.