My theory of teaching is based on Dewey’s principal of effective teaching. Dewey believed that all learning comes through genuine experience, strong reflection and is a social process. The quality of the experience is in relation to the surroundings, the social context of the experience, the democracy of ideas, and the quality of continuity. In teaching, I see my role as ensuring these elements are in operation.
I operate under a constructive view of learning. During instruction, I work alongside the learner, not as a master, but as a skilled partner who organizes the task so as to afford the learner the opportunity to take over the easy parts and be comfortable enough to receive help with the harder parts. Within this role, I simultaneously observe, interpret, and make decisions about the learner’s interactions. At times I’ve experienced what Sulzby and Teale have called obuchenie, a Russian term for simultaneous teaching and learning.
I believe learning happens through cooperative learning, technology assisted learning, and readers and writer’s workshops. Through these activities, students participate in guided reading instruction, interactive writing discussion of multicultural literature, character building, discipline and social change. Instruction should be focused upon culturally relevant curriculum utilizing thematic/inter-disciplinary units, and standards-led instruction driven by on-going assessments. Together, students and I are finding ways to solve problems, and communicate our ideas using tools of technologies.