Philosophy Statement
As an educator, my personal professional philosophy centres around the belief that every student has a unique potential and deserves the opportunity to access and succeed in the curriculum and learning environment.
Professional Knowledge
Building rapport in my classroom is an essential part of ensuring my professional knowledge is current and adaptive to my individual classrooms. In order to allow each student, the academic support needed in the classroom, I rely on current literature, my own education and current age appropriate media to address the needs and interests of each student in my classroom. I allow each student to have their interests represented in our learning experiences through the implementation of student voice.
I strongly believe in student-centred pedagogy and teaching practice. The implementation of Student-Centred Pedagogy provides students with more responsibility for their own learning (McCabe, 2014). As an English teacher, I believe this pedagogy is appropriate, especially in the older year levels, as they are able to take responsibility for how they enhance their own literary writing, which allows for more time dedicated to differentiation. In the languages, I choose to teach relevant content using differentiation strategies such as tiered differentiation and using learning experiences such as dual coding. Supported by the literature, I hold the belief that tiered differentiation is a more conscious and intentional way of differentiating, which helps students to succeed, particularly students who need assistance with literacy (Campbell, 2009). While I am confident in my content knowledge, I believe ensuring the content is delivered in a student centred way is the backbone of successfully teaching curriculum content.
Professional Practice
Project-based learning (PBL) is a technique I have implemented in my classroom, finding it is effective for making learning engaging and encouraging students to value their education. As we still continue to transition out of the COVID era of education, in my experience, motivation and engagement are lacking in students and needs more support. Through the implementation of PBL, I plan and deliver lessons that are planned to be context-specific, with increased student involvement in their learning. I also plan my lessons to allow for supported social interactions where students can share their knowledge and understanding. I implore to create a safe and inclusive classroom which allows for both social and isolated students to engage in classroom discussion. I am of the belief that student contribution is valuable, whether it be vocal or with the support of ICT tools in a written, collaborative format. I believe creates a more inclusive learning environment and allows for more equitable behaviour management, as each student feels represented, safe and a sense of belonging in the learning environment. The literature supports this idea as students experience an appropriate level of cognitive challenge as a result of the freedom and challenges of working through authentic questions and real-world problems and practices that are relevant to the child, which is the key idea of PBL (Kokotsaki, 2016).
Professional Engagement
Throughout my life I have always striven to learn more. In addition to my bachelor’s degree, I have obtained a graduate certificate in education, and will continue my studies in line with the evolving needs of my school community, and to strive to achieve the ‘Highly Accomplished’ standards set out by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). I value collaborative reflection and professional learning communities which allow me to develop my teaching. My passion for education has led me through many different career paths and I bring these new and diverse perspectives and skills to my teaching and professional engagement with my colleagues.
I enjoy engaging with my school community outside of the classroom to enrich the social connections I have with parents and caregivers. Building this rapport away from the learning environment allows for easier communication with caregivers and an opportunity to interact with parents who have an aversion to schools or education.
References
AITSL. (n.d.). Highly accomplished - AITSL. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/highly-accomplished.
Campbell, B. (2009). To-With-By: A three-tiered model for differentiated instruction. The New England Reading Association Journal, 44(2), 7–.
Kokotsaki, D., Menzies, V., & Wiggins, A. (2016). Project-based learning: A review of the literature. Improving Schools, 19(3), 267–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/1365480216659733.
McCabe, A., & O’Connor, U. (2014). Student-centred learning: the role and responsibility of the lecturer. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(4), 350–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2013.860111