Philosophy of Education Elena Clark Drake University April 2014 Introduction I believe that all students can learn

and can be successful. As a teacher, my daily instruction, management, and interactions with students and teachers support this statement. Active Mental Engagement Student engagement is the best way for students to learn. I engage my students through visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and tactile means. For example, I use white boards to demonstrate math concepts for a visual component and have students practice as I demonstrate on their own whiteboards, which incorporates a kinesthetic and tactile component. Asking open-ended questions helps generate discussions with students. I have them answer through a variety of engagement strategies such as turning and talking to a partner, writing their ideas down, or sharing in small or whole groups. This incorporates the auditory component, and also builds connections between students. As long as students are actively engaged, they learn. Classroom Management Making instructional expectations, as well as daily routines, structures, and procedures clear to students enhances the flow of the school day. Within the first six weeks, my students will be clear on those expectations and will have rehearsed those procedures multiple times, after much modeling. Consistency is key to holding students accountable for behavior, procedural, and instructional expectations. Building Rapport with Students I believe that building rapport with students develops a healthy classroom community where learners thrive. I learn students names as quickly as I can. I build rapport with students by learning their interests and incorporating their interests into my content instruction. Taking notes on students behaviors, strengths, talents, and areas of improvement helps me cater instruction for them. I also learn what makes different students angry, and how they respond to different discipline. Building rapport with students builds a foundation for student success. Motivation Highly motivated students are students who know they will be successful. Success makes students want to keep trying. I want my students to know everyday that they can and will be successful in my classroom. I communicate to students my high expectations, but I also provide the necessarily scaffolds for the diverse needs of my students. For example, when teaching fourth graders mental math, I gave the students a variety of easy, medium, and hard problems (without distinguishing between them for the students), so that students who were lower in mathematics would experience success to some extent. Students should feel successful to some extent when learning. Collaboration Collaborating with other teachers and support staff has impacted my teaching tremendously. Working with other teachers helps me provide better lessons by varying my instruction with their ideas. Working with support staff such as English language learner staff and interventionists helps me to better understand my students interests, specific areas of improvement, and strengths. For example, with students demonstrating unwanted behaviors, collaboration has helped me develop fine-tuned plans to help that student succeed. Collaboration leads to student success.