NAME: DARRELL DULALCHAN

ID: 03725218
DATE: 30TH, January,2016

MY EMERGING TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My teaching philosophy is that pedagogic activities should be guided by the principal:

Do this if it enables students to learn. My teaching practices should empower students to take
ownership of their education and help them realize that they are responsible for their learning
outcomes. When students take this step, they can make striking progress and achieve academic
success. I find that when I can convey my own enthusiasm for science, it is often contagious
enough that students become engaged in learning. I try to help students transition from
memorizing concepts to thinking critically about ideas and connecting concepts with everyday
examples. I encourage students to tackle problems creatively, which helps them learn to think
outside conventional boundaries and to seek the deeper meaning of a concept or finding. These
skills have facilitated the greatest advances in science and also foster personal and intellectual
fulfilment.
In my role as a teacher, I have three primary functions: tour guide, facilitator, and gate
keeper. These are not mutually exclusive activities, although students often regard them as such.
Each lesson, activity, or homework assignment contains elements of all three functions. As a tour
guide, I lead my students on an intellectual journey through their course of study. My role is to
point out the scenic attractions, highlighting particular features of the subject matter, and
focusing attention on major points, important terms or concepts, relevant issues, and significant

relationships. It is my responsibility to decide where the path leads, what topics are important,
which concepts are central, and how much emphasis is placed on each subject area. It is also my
duty to decide how steep the path should be, and whether to lead my students over obstacles or
around them. As a facilitator, my job is to provide an organizational framework and a set of tools
that students can use to assimilate the knowledge they seek. These tools must be sufficiently
diverse to accommodate the varying needs of different personalities and learning styles. In my
lessons, I provide handouts, worksheets, group activities, and homework assignments that
supplement my lesson. The variety of these resources is designed to appeal to as many students
as possible. As a gate keeper, I am responsible for setting standards of achievement and for
evaluating the progress of my students against those standards. I do not reward laziness or sloppy
thinking. I insist upon excellence. The bar is set at a fixed height, not to be lowered. In the course
of their education, I expect students to develop an ability to think critically and analytically, to
know what questions to ask before making a decision, and to know where to look for answers to
their questions.
It is important to practice of education that I create real world connections in the
classroom while producing a student-centred learning environment. If students do not believe
they will use classroom material in their future, they see lessons as insignificant, pointless and
not worth their time. In order to achieve ones objectives, a teacher must make the material
relevant to their students. I will always try to ensure that I set the right example to my students
not only in the classroom but in society as a whole since I also teach via the hidden curriculum. I
must strive to become a role model to my students so as to inspire them to reach for the limits of
their academic potential. I now view teaching as a reflective process and myself as a reflective

practitioner and this is important since it is only by reflecting on ourselves can we fix the cracks
and make ourselves stronger and stronger.

Strong principles to guide your teaching. Does your work as gate keeper conflict with the
student-centred teacher?