What is learning? That may be a strange way to start a statement of one’s teaching philosophy. Or, is it?
As a teacher, I want my students to learn. But, how can I know they’ve learned unless I understand exactly what learning is?
I’ve been doubly blessed to have learned and facilitated learning across disciplines and cultures for quite a few years. I began to think about my philosophy of teaching for the first time, when I was thrust into teaching a class that required students to do so. Since then, I’ve updated and tweaked my own reasoning after each course to which I was assigned as the primary instructor. As I embark on a new professional journey (just secured my first tenure-track position!) I decided to update my thoughts on the matter.
Throughout my education (formal and informal) I have always situated my understanding within a personal, naturalistic framework; translating lectured material and life experiences into knowledge constructs that were relevant to me. My fundamental “point of view” on the importance of education and in particular, experiential learning, can be traced back to my childhood. As an enthusiastic explorer of my local surroundings, many-a-day was spent investigating and charting the local environment of rolling hills, piney woods, virgin hardwood forests, fertile delta fields, gullies, creeks and rivers, meadows, swamps and bayous, and the innumerable creatures of nature that inhabited the north Mississippi area between the dividing ridges of the Yocona (of William Faulkner fame) and Schoona Rivers. Led by my great-Uncle Ralph (himself trying to satisfy an undying thirst for learning) there was no nook or cranny uncovered; my learning style has always been squarely planted within functional and constructivist pedagogies. I began reading the World Book Encyclopedia (1962 edition — at Uncle Ralph’s insistence) at age four; before I’d even began the first grade of elementary school.
How did my great Uncle Ralph make this meaningful for me? He showed me the pages of snakes; of which he circled each locally available species.
Now Vincey, he drawled, you’ns got to know which ‘o these is good and which ‘o these is bad. If’n ye can’t read, and find out, ye’d best not be walking in these here parts alone.
So, for me, learning is making sense of my world in a way that is useful for me to succeed. From Kovbasyuk & Blessinger’s (2013) Meaning centered education: International perspectives and explorations in higher education I learned to measure student learning by the meanings they assign to the constructs in a particular course.
Role-playing and case studying are my favorite methods to assess student learning. The majority of assessments of my students are based on what they do. I want students to develop problem-solving skills, but at the same time I want them to realize that there is not a “cookie cutter” solution to all the problems they may face in their lives. Reflections are an exceptionally critical method.
The salient differences in the way I approach teaching include the integration several learning & performance improvement theoretical foundations from an array of disciplines including anthropology, economics, education, management, leadership, political science, psychology, and sociology. The most critical addition to my coursework is that I include affective learning outcomes (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1964) that compliment traditional cognitive learning outcomes recommended by NCHEMS (2000) in their landmark study. Affective learning has been ignored by educators (Arora & Sharma, 2018; Clark & Fiske, 1982; Duckworth & Gross, 2014; Gredler, 2009; Spady, 1994) at the expense of our students’ learning. We see at our national governmental level, that through decades of ignoring, even rejecting (DeBono, 1985) the domain (affective learning) which has the potential to shape values, we have become led by the valueless. It is critical that we include measures of learning and assessment that are equitable (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020) and improve (Hutchings, Kinzie, & Kuh, 2015) our students’ outcomes beyond the classrooms too.
I rely upon and utilize knowledge gleaned through managing my father’s business, education administration, human resources management, and my accumulated cross-cultural experiences to inform, highlight and focus discussions on student’s knowledge and awareness of systems, senses of place in history and humans’ impact on the Earth’s environment. This is in keeping with my goal of helping effect change in the way individuals and groups approach learning and building understandings of ourselves in context. I attempt do this in an entertaining way; I approximate “real life” as much as possible in my sterile classroom setting; role-playing is quite common.
My students should be successful. Robert Sternberg (1985) defined the triarchic mind as “purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-world environments relevant to one’s life” (p. 45) which means to succeed, we must learn to manage changes as they occur in our lives, throughout our lives. Success involves solving problems and making decisions, applying lessons learned to future situations and taking advantage of opportunities to learn new things when those opportunities are presented. Success can be measured in different ways, according to one’s own values. My students learn to recognize their values and begin to start focusing on those consciously.
Role playing and case studying are my favorite methods to assess student learning. Of course, there are necessarily some paper and pencil tests, some computer tasks and so forth, but the majority of the assessments of my students come from what they actually do. Intelligent students will quickly discern what many teachers “expect them to do” so I mix my methods thoroughly. I do give feedback so the students know why they achieved certain results. This gives students a chance to display their adeptness at adapting. I want students to develop problem-solving skills, but at the same time I want them to realize that there is not a “cookie cutter” solution to all the problems they may face in their lives.
I want them to have expert decision-making skills, so I give them practice. How do I know when they can make decisions for themselves? When my students decide that their instructor might not be 100% correct, I am satisfied they have learned.
The Earth’s future lies in the balance; the generation of students in my classroom may in fact be our last generation. I’m neither arrogant nor naive enough to think that the particular students leaving my classroom will be the ones that make the greatest contributions to sustainable development. However, I will provide them with tools, and equipment or rather “accessories” for the equipment they already brought to the table.
During final examinations, which are often oral/visual presentations followed by interviews, I get goosebumps when students begin to question me on the subject matter of the course. I get a lump in my throat when they ask me if they can stay in touch with me and ask me for advice for their first job. But the most rewarding thing of all, is when a student takes the ultimate risk; that student has mulled the thoughts over in her/his mind, and suddenly says to me, “well teacher, I beg to differ, and here’s why” and follows that with a list of examples, illustrations or evidence to back up her or his claim. That particular student has just “made sense” of her or his world; that student is learning; when I witness it; I feel I have taught well.
Here is a document that has all of the references above.