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Learning Style, Teaching Style

I’m preparing to rewrite the “Teaching Style and Practices” page on this website – partly because I think my perspective has shifted thanks to a bit more teaching experience and partly because that page needs a lighter tone (it’s deadly earnest at the moment). Ideally, the content will ultimately serve as a better reflection of my current teaching practices and the prose will be more immediately accessible to both potential employers (who will undoubtedly need to skim the page) and to students who are interested in gaining some insight into my philosophy and methods.

I found inspiration today in the Faculty Focus article, “Six Questions That Will Bring Your Teaching Philosophy Into Focus,” by Neil Haave. Rather than focusing on the history of education or education philosophies, Haave asks readers to think about six questions:

“1. Describe the best learning experience you have had as a student. (This helps to identify how we best learn and reminds us as instructors what it is like to be a student. Maryellen Weimer (2013) recently discussed this in the context of influencing the learning environment.)

2. Describe the best teaching experience you have had as an instructor. Are there any similarities to the learning experience you described above? (This question attempts to link our learning to our teaching.)

3. What are you trying to achieve in your students with your teaching? (This is a big question and may be best initially answered by thinking about it in the context of what you feel is the course you teach with the most success.)

4. Why is this important to you? (This helped me to begin articulating my approach to my discipline in the context of teaching. For others I know it becomes larger than the discipline itself and may link to the personal growth of students and not only their intellectual growth.)

5. How do you achieve your objectives you wrote down for question #3 above? That is, what teaching strategies or approaches do you use in your classes that produce the learning environment or opportunities for your students to reach your teaching objectives? (Hopefully, this has been informed by your answers in questions #1 & 2 above. If there is no apparent connection between this question and your answers to #1 & 2, then this might be cause to pause and reflect why this is.)

6. Why do you use these particular teaching strategies as opposed to others that are available to you? (This is where you start developing the argument or citing the evidence for the value or success of your approach to teaching. Hopefully, you are able to make links to your own learning philosophy.)”

Since my teaching style is still in formation, I’d like to use these questions to focus my own thoughts over the next few weeks – and, ideally, to start a conversation with others (or join one already running). I especially love the invitation to consider the ways my learning style influences my teaching. I think that opens up the opportunity to think about how that experience (and inevitable bias) either serves students well or blinds me to their learning preferences and needs. To that end, my next post will tackle the first two questions and then I’ll take the other four in turn, probably redirecting my attention towards other teaching/student concerns from time to time. If you’re already considering these questions, though, let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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