Essay Sample on My Educational Philosophy: Who Is a Teacher?

All students can and deserve an opportunity for a quality education. Unfortunately, it is impossible to measure learning, which, in turn, makes it difficult to assess what is a quality education. However, it is possible to measure performance. Establishing solid methods of assessing performance, allows the teacher to infer that learning took place. I design my instructional strategies to facilitate student performance through research projects, in and out of class participation, and various types of quizzes/tests, and then infer based on the student’s performance that learning occurred and that the student received a quality education.

It is the teacher who serves as a facilitator of learning. For me, successful teaching means integrating both theoretical and content knowledge, along with practical application. My collegiate career has prepared me academically, and my extensive field experiences in politics and making history has prepared me for facilitating the real world applications. There must be dynamic interaction between content, theory, and practice.

I believe that an appreciation of the liberal arts and sciences, western and non-western cultures, and global concerns contribute to the intellectual vitality of individuals. While the student must be committed to learning, it is the teacher that must motivate the student to learn. As teacher, I instill the passion and motivation for the course content by making the subject matter relevant to the student’s life. I am very knowledgeable of the material and believe that I must ignite the spark from within the student to develop a likewise appreciation.

It is the responsibility of the teacher to allow students to develop the skills, attitudes, and knowledge base needed to deal with the information age. This is done through instruction that incorporates a variety of teaching strategies and student learning styles. I use current state-of-the art informational and instructional technologies for effective education. Also important is to make the subject matter come alive through hands on application, such as guest speakers, films, and trips to historical and governmental sites.More…

For example, when teaching Egyptian Civilization, I have a lesson developed around an interactive electronic game conducted online where the student acts as a pharaoh supervising the construction of his pyramid. The student must pass through a number of steps to successfully build their pyramid. Afterwards, each student writes a short paper explaining their findings. The students love this lesson. They get to play an electronic game, which is relevant to their life (playing electronic games are a hobby for most of my students – to be “forced” to play a game is something they will gladly do), and they learn much about life in ancient Egypt.