“I don’t believe I can really do without teaching.” - Richard P. Feynman

“If we expect students to be winners and expect them to do well, they will rise to the occasion.” - Jaime Escalante

“We can talk all we want about awards and salary raises, but the real reward of teaching is teaching. The personal satisfaction you get when you do it effectively is just phenomenal.” - David W. Pratt

I have long held the belief that students learn best via hands-on access to resources and via engaging, challenging, real world experiences that are relevant to them. Using a constructivist approach, I can provide students with the opportunity to develop their own understandings, with guidance, from these experiences. This belief is supported by Yager (1991), which suggests that “learning outcomes do not depend on what the teacher presents. Rather, they are an interactive result of what information is encountered and how the student processes it based on perceived notions and existing personal knowledge.”

As a teacher, I work quickly to establish an environment that is caring and supportive and allows students to take calculated risks. My teaching style has a strong focus on knowledge construction rather than knowledge transmission, a key goal supported by a number of educational theorists. (McInerney and McInerney, 1994; Slavin, 1994, as cited in Dalgarno, 1996).

I believe it is important to share a learning journey with the students, supporting all learners in the class to be involved in a challenging task and achieve success at their own level, and learning with them as they learn about a new topic. When students in my classroom are working on a task, I walk around the room, interacting with the students about their work and challenging their ideas about what they are learning, to ensure that they can demonstrate a sound knowledge and clear understanding of the topic.

I believe that it is imperative that students are aware of what and how they will be assessed on a unit of work and that this information is made clear to them from the moment they begin a unit of work. By planning for student learning and assessment in this manner, it is very clear what the goals of the unit of work are and students feel more comfortable about learning because they know exactly what is expected of them and how they will be assessed.

The learning tasks that I set for students are authentic and based around actual real world activities that students may have already engaged in from their outside-of-school experiences, or may engage in after school, and I aim to integrate information and communication technologies that the students would be likely to use if they were attempting this task in a work environment, to make it as realistic and relevant as possible. One of my goals is for students to have a sense of ownership over the work that they do in the classroom, whilst having accountability and responsibility for managing their own learning during self-directed inquiry units of work.

My role as a teacher is to support the students in my class and in my school to further develop their knowledge base, their life skills and to understand the world around them. It also involves being a respected member of the local community, utilising the support that community groups offer and offering support back to the community.

My goal as a teacher is to prepare students to become global citizens, aware of their social and ethical obligations and equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in whatever paths their future working and community involvements take them.

Last revised: July 2010.