Which core beliefs and ideas form the basis of my teaching?

My Teaching Philosophy 

This short summary of my teaching philosophy consists of two parts: my general education philosophy and my education philosophy concerning teaching history. It is obvious that both are closely intertwined and sometimes unconsciously blend while planning, teaching and reviewing, but it is always better to address them separately and keep them separate while analyzing possible learning difficulties.

My general teaching philosophy

My general philosophy is largely based on the three key components that make up motivation as defined by self-determination theory: relationship, autonomy, and competence.

One of the most important things in education in my opinion is ‘relationship’. It is essential that teachers and students have a good relationship with each other. A teacher should show interest in his/her students, always be ready to help and be easily approachable. On the other hand, he or she should also allow students to be interested in him or her and share stories and experiences to strengthen the bond. This will create a feeling of ‘togetherness’; we are helping each other to reach our mutual goals. Relationship also means that one should relate to the ‘personal world’ of the students and use relatable examples while explaining a certain phenomenon. The ultimate goal is to create a new incentive for students and teachers: we cannot let each other down and fail.

The second aspect is autonomy. I interpret this term again in different ways. First, it means that students should have a say in what they are learning and doing and how. Each student has different interests, skills, strengths and preferences. I believe a teacher should offer opportunities to personalize learning whether that it is on a small or large scale. This also fosters a more innovative and creative environment which I highly value. Autonomy for me also means to see everyone as an individual and respect everyone’s choices, interests and learning styles and be aware of possible mental problems such as ADD and autism. Moreover, autonomy also connects well with ownership to learning which I try to stimulate in my classroom.

Competence is the final and third aspect of motivation. This means that students should feel that they are able to succeed, that they (will) have the competence to pass the test and that they have the confidence to take up the challenge. If students lack all these feelings, all motivation will disappear quickly. It also works the other way. If students feel that they will easily succeed and have no problem whatsoever of passing the test, they will also be demotivated. Within literature 80% is usually seen as the magic number of known content/skills versus new content/skills. Someone might say that this is easier said than done, as there is a wide range of levels and competence in a classroom. Therefore, differentiation is important. It is vital to design classes during which struggling students will get extra help and scaffolds while excellent students get more challenging tasks.

I like to use the metaphor of a cat and a string. A cat will be bored if a string is dangling in front of its nose (within reach) or hanging from the ceiling (out of its reach). It will be very interested however when the string seems just within/without reach. That is the right level of challenging. With 20 cats in one class, it will take a lot of skill to adjust all the strings to keep classes challenging and interesting for everyone, but it should be done to keep everyone on board.

Apart from these motivation related key words there are two other important terms that define my general educational philosophy: Transparency and metacognition. Education should be as transparent as possible. Students must know why they are learning something, why this assignment would help them to reach their goals and why I always randomly pick students instead of letting students answer who raised their finger. I want my students to understand the choices I make as teacher. Vice versa, I also expect transparency from the students and try to make learning visible. I want to know how students learn, how long they studied for a test and check their homework answers routinely. This way I can better identify learning problems and come up with relevant solutions

Metacognition, or ‘learning to learn’, is also connected with this. It is quite odd that we spend years and years learning and studying, but rarely learn how to learn. I try to explain in my classes why we are doing certain exercises, how this will help the students to understand the content and how they can best review and study it for the test. There is a lot of research about the best cognitive strategies for learning which I occasionally address in my classes. In practice this also means that I apply these strategies while designing my classes. I choose active over passive learning, incorporate higher level thinking activities and do a lot of reviewing and testing to build retrieval and storage strength.

Teaching history

As a MA teaching history graduate, my educational philosophy centers around the field of history, but this can easily be extended to social studies. My educational philosophy is based on the concept of active historical thinking which is basically the concept of 21st century skills applied to the field of teaching history.

The term active historical thinking can be best explained by separating the terms ‘active’ and ‘historical thinking’. ‘Historical thinking’ forms the basis of my history classes. Traditionally, history education has been based on the idea of knowing history. Lately, there has been a shift to focus more on historical thinking which I wholeheartedly support.

Instead of just knowing dates, persons and facts, I want my students to be ‘mini-historians’. They should understand that history is a construct of the past and construct their own version. This means that they should be able to analyze primary and secondary sources, debate which World War 1 cause was most important and look at a certain phenomenon from different perspectives. I want my students to have a critical attitude and not just accept anything the book says and question my views and opinions.

Thus, instead of reproducing history, they should try to add something to the ongoing historical debate, however small that contribution might be. This all sounds great, but how to teach this?

That is where the ‘active’ part comes in. As discussed in the previous section, active learning is much more effective (and fun) than passive learning. Historical thinking also cannot be trained by just reading texts and listening to lectures and therefore ‘active learning’ assignments are needed. The assignments I use in my classes can range from making mind maps and drawing historical terms to role playing and ‘mysteries’.

The most important thing is that there are no correct answers. Of course, some answers would be more correct than others, but if everything is properly supported by arguments and source evidence, it is accepted. The real learning takes place when students must make and defend their choices and practice skills as debating, collaboration, critical thinking and communication.

Conclusion

If I would have to pick one word that is the most important in my classroom, then it would be ‘why’. Students need to know why they need to learn something. Teachers need to know why students did not perform and are struggling. Students and teachers both need to know why certain ways of learning work better than others. As historians and mini historians, we should constantly ask ourselves why we study the past and make the choices that define our story of the past.