Learning Blog #7

• Personal philosophy of education:

• Learning is acquiring new information and forming unique opinions

• I believe that learning is not a direct transmission of information. Learning is an interaction between the learner, their peers, their teacher(s), and their environment. The same lesson could result in many different learned lessons based on individual perspectives.

• Learning happens when the learner is engaged and curious.

• The key to learning is questioning and engaging in the material. As a teacher, I hope to make lessons that are relatable to the students in order to pique their interests. If they see the value in what they are learning, they are more likely to retain the information.

• As a teacher I am there to assist students through their individual learning process.

• Students all have very different pathways of learning. They have different interests, strengths, and weaknesses. As such, they will all need support in different ways. It is the teacher’s responsibility to guide them rather than give them a road map.

• The top 5 principles that are essential in creating a classroom environment for learning:

• Maintaining a safe environment- first and foremost, children need to feel safe before they will be able to pay attention and learn.

• Putting the person first- knowing that your lesson might not be the most important thing going on in their life.

• Getting to know your students- how do they like to learn? What are their interests? How can I make the lesson relevant to their life?

• Creating Universal Design lesson plans- designing a lesson that is accessible to everyone automatically so that students don’t need to be singled out.

• Being adaptable- not taking it personally when the students don’t like the “amazing lesson” you spent hours creating and then trying something else.

• How do you see diversity of learning needs and “ways of being” being addressed in your learning as a teacher?

• In my learning as a teacher I have learned about my own “ways of being” and, in conjunction, have seen how others differ from me. I can see in both the classrooms with my students as well as the classes with my peers how everyone has different strengths and different learning needs. To me, this illustrates the need for differentiation and Universal design lesson plans. It also reminds me that, as a teacher, I will need to take a step back in order to think about my lessons critically; just because I would find a lesson great and interesting if I were the student doesn’t mean that it is interesting or even accessible to all types of learners.