My Teaching Philosophy

SA VIDYA YA VIMUKTAYE

(Knowledge is that which liberates!)

The above quote from Hindu scripture, The Vishnu Purana, accurately states my teaching philosophy. I believe that the goal of education is to emancipate one’s mind from ignorance, help discover the wisdom within and outside, and apply that knowledge in different walks of life. This means that students should be able to apply the learnings from class in aspects of their lives other than academia. Hence I work to relate classroom teaching to its real-world application.

Coming from a constructivist worldview, I see students as active participants in the process of learning. They create and organize knowledge based on their experiences instead of passively receiving pre-existing knowledge of the world. The role of the teacher is to provide the students with opportunities and resources which can facilitate the process of knowledge creation.

In order to help students create their own knowledge, I encourage discussion among their peers in my classrooms. With this view, most times my role is just to guide the discussion in right direction. I try to mold the conversation in such a way that students can identify the broad themes themselves and encourage them to speak their opinions about a topic under consideration. Thus it ensures that they actively participate in knowledge creation instead of passively receiving the information from me. I also ensure the classroom environment is friendly and their opinions are considered and valued. I make the class environment jovial and engaging by regularly telling jokes and talking to students about their out of class activities. In order to make sure that students’ opinions are respected, I incorporate students’ responses during discussions.

The practice of respecting students’ opinions is reflected in my grading too. While I tell them where they could have improved their assignments, I make sure to point out what I liked about their work. While grading numerical problems, I stress reasoning and logic and not just the correct answer. This is why I encourage students to explain their though process especially when they are trying to solve numerical problems.

The way a student creates knowledge is related to their family and cultural background, proficiency in the medium of instruction, classroom context etc., which means each student creates a sense of the world in a different way as each student comes from a unique background. My aim is to understand these complexities and shape my instruction to cater to the needs of each student. In order to better understand each student, I take a short break during each class session where I ask one student to talk to the entire class about themselves and share their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, their aspirations and other interesting details about them with the class. I also organize movie nights and dinner events for the class so that students can spend time with one another in informal settings. These activities not only help me know them better but also open up an avenue for students to talk and be friends with each other, and hence become comfortable in classroom.

Moving beyond instruction, I believe that the relationship between and a teacher and his students is not just limited to the classroom settings. Students, at times, look up to their teachers for guidance in other walks of life. I try to become a friend, an advisor and a mentor to my students. I spend a lot of time and energy in creating a comfortable space between me and my students so that they feel free to share their concerns with me. This is why I strongly encourage students to see me during office hours and take a keen interest in their overall development.

I regularly take oral and written feedback from the students about my teaching and their understanding of the course content. I also sometimes ask my colleagues to observe my classes and suggest improvements. By reflecting on my teaching and incorporating the suggestions given by my students and my colleagues, I continually try to improve my teaching.

A Better Teacher!

I had read somewhere that there are no difficult subjects, just bad teachers. For some reasons I believed in this and tried to see any student failure as the inability of the teacher or the system as a whole to transfer knowledge to the student. This was a year back and I had recently joined Virginia Tech as a graduate student and teaching assistant. The past one year in both the roles has taught me a lot about teaching and learning. And I hope working in both the roles during the next academic year will add to my learning.

Learning something is not like drinking a magic potion which a student can just gulp down the throat and be equipped with the desired knowledge.  It is like a bridge which can only be crossed with joint efforts of the teacher and the student. While a teacher has to understand the needs and attitude of the student and teach them accordingly, the later has to put an equal amount of effort in learning what is being taught. Even the smartest teacher cannot teach a student who is not willing to learn and even the smartest kid cannot learn from a teacher who is unable to understand the needs of the student and accordingly modify his/her style of imparting knowledge.

As a child I was told that learning is a difficult endeavor. Not that it is painful but it requires hard work and dedication. For some reasons I feel that is true. Working as a teaching assistant, I came across many students who would just be interested in getting the right answer instead of learning the subject. Needless to say they did not learn much from the class and during the time they spent with me. These are the kind of students who graduate from universities without much idea about what they learned in four years while they were attending college. I have heard my fellow teaching assistants complaining how students in their senior year at times are unaware of what they should know by the end of their senior year. On the other hand, there would be students who would try to understand the subject matter while trying to get their homework done. And the later were the ones who actually were able to appreciate the course material.

While I was in my undergrad, I had the same attitude towards education. I just wanted to score well in tests without trying to learn the course content. I managed to do fairly well when it came to getting a good GPA, but failed to learn what I should have during those days. On the contrary, in grad school, when I started putting serious efforts in learning, I feel that I am learning a lot. Not that the quality of teaching has drastically changed but it’s the step required to be taken by me which has lead to the difference. I had good teachers in my undergrad days and I have great teachers now, but the extra step taken by me has made me a better student.

While it is important to understand the role of student effort in learning, blaming just the kids for not putting in the required efforts can be overstretch. Students these days are forced to go on the traditional educational paths which can secure jobs for them while their interest lies somewhere else. For example, I know so many students who are studying engineering because it is a secure way of getting a job after graduating. Moreover, when the capability of a person is measured in terms of the degree he or she has or the grades obtained in tests, the quality of learning is bound to deteriorate. This system of education puts in little value in a child’s interest. If a potential musician is forced to become a doctor, he will surely end up becoming a bad one.

As Sir Ken Robinson says that the present education system was modeled to cater to the need of industrial revolution. We are now way past the industrial revolution time, and hence the system of imparting knowledge needs to change. And then we will have not only better teachers but also better students.