Curriculum/Educational Philosophy - Personal Statement Example

The idea of belief in personal strength and conquering of weaknesses is most appropriate. Talk and write approach One of my teaching philosophies is fundamentally made up of the talk and writes approach. In this case, my students listen to what I tell them based on my understanding of the topics and sources referred to while in class, they get into discussion among themselves and with my involvement and then this is articulated in writing (Vella, 2008). I believe that talk and writing approach makes it easier for the students to grasp whatever information I am trying to pass across.

This is because it has been proven that a combination of both talk and writing approach to learning gives the best improvement in a student’s learning experience. Analytically speaking, talk serves as a recipe for sharing and clarifying the given knowledge to students with the assistance of me, their teacher. Writing on the other hand serves to getting the knowledge being passed on to students refined and consolidated for better understanding and reference since human beings are ever forgetful.

When an idea is written down by a student, the possibilities of grasping it and putting it in use by relating to the class talk held, is higher than if writing was not carried out (Vella, 2008). Of course the value gained from the talk and write approach may have to vary from one student to the other due to psychological differences. In normal circumstances, it is common knowledge that the level of understanding issues and processing of information varies from one individual to the other. Much as this philosophy is effective, I cannot guarantee that all the students being taught will gain the same value from such an exercise due to personal weaknesses (Vella, 2008).

The skills of my students in a given subject area that I am teaching would not be the same. Those students who are skilled in that subject area would be able to benefit the most from the writing process, even without having the talk, but those students who are not well skilled in the subject area will benefit most when it comes to the talk part, which basically involves discussion with and among students. The combination of both approaches, therefore; makes it easier to have a class of students who have understood the concept at the end of the exercise (Vella, 2008).

Connecting with students and integrating the teaching process The other approach that I employ is normally geared at making the students be able to conceptualize problems, however complex they might be, and helping them develop necessary skills to answer asked questions, which in most cases have no answers from the word go. This approach is based on the connection of teacher with students. My teaching practice tries to get to the students through an emotional and intellectual platform where I deliberately do deliver ideas and give findings that I think do contradict with most of the assumptions they may have held for longer.

Challenging of beliefs and ideas that students have held for longer brings them to reality and compels them towards engaging in the provided materials and other sources more deeply in search for answers, in which case they strive to challenge me back. Indeed this could be as well looked at as psychological game in teaching practice. Students get to learn and believe that solutions to problems could be varied due to dynamic nature of situations in real life. With this approach, welcoming of