My Philosophy:
9-10 years ago, when I was still studying my undergrad in Taiwan, I was asked to work at a Cram School. I felt their methods of teaching to be far different than those I had grown up with. Thus, the first thing that I saw was the difficulty for Taiwanese students to grasp the pronunciation and grammar of the English language. I immediately developed a Philosophy that students need to learn in a fun way for them to remember. That changed after 2-3 years of teaching. I realized fun or funny lessons were good at keeping students engaged, but their progress was limited. I kept wondering what other structured teaching I could add to ensure more learning.
After completing my BSc. in Computer Science and Information Engineering, I moved to another city in Taiwan, Tainan, and I got mentored by a very experienced cram school teacher. I discovered something useful there, the order of teaching matters for the content you are presenting. I learned about deductive and inductive methods, “I do, we do, you do”, and division of time depending on the lesson for a beginning, practice, and conclusion. This changed my philosophy entirely. I believed then, that learning needed to first be structured, then add the fun to it to engage students. I saw how my effectiveness as a teacher improved dramatically.
I decided after this to challenge myself to teach at a formal Elementary School. I felt prepared to impart proper lessons. I was quite adept with technology so adding these into my lessons wasn’t a big issue. Nevertheless, I soon got stuck with something new. In cram schools, kids were often separated into the levels of English they were learning, so the structure and the games always matched them. In an elementary school, however, all levels and backgrounds were mixed in one classroom. I didn’t have the same levels for my math classes, and I soon found out, those not doing well in math, were doing wonders in my science class, or in their Language Arts classes. I was stumped. How could I possibly provide a structured lesson, that is fun, but is also able to cater to all these learners?
The first steps I took were to ask. I asked ideas mainly from my head teacher, the curriculum manager, and some other colleagues. I took into consideration what they told me, and I improved a little but it still didn’t feel enough. I tried my best to keep my classes fun still, but I was losing other things, and I felt as if a few of my students were falling between the cracks.
This is when I took the decision to study my Masters. I decided to focus on Educational Technology for my masters. My clinical practice was focused on middle school math, and workshops were focused on how to be a coach to other teachers. It was the combination of these three that gave me a profound and more rounded view of what I was looking for, and I found it.
My philosophy now:
- Students learning math: the focus if first to solve accurately, then quickly. As one of my favorite teachers once said, “It’s not practice that makes perfect, but rather perfect practice that produces a perfect student.”
- Students learning English: the focus is to master writing and speaking while supporting other factors that allows this fluency. As a Hindi proverb says, “Those who know how to tell stories rule the world.”
- Science: the focus is to do and see the content learned. Thus, I believe twice the time spent on lectures needs to be spent on labs and hands on. “Plant seeds of curiosity in students, for them to grow into scientific trees.”
I saw the importance of differentiation, application of technology, and planning for different level students: easier problems but also challenge scenarios to those way ahead. I believe my philosophy has evolved into: give students structure, opportunities to shine in their strengths, opportunities to learn from their mistakes, throw in relevant and updated technology, and at the same time, have fun while doing so. Most importantly, teachers stay updated with tech and what’s going on in education and the world. This is the key to understanding your students and actually being able to give them opportunities to learn safely and comfortably in their respective bowling lanes.