My Teaching Philosophy

Or as a professor in my Master's Program liked to call it, my {CoNcEpTuAl FrAmEwOrK}. 

Pretty fancy words for me. I would describe it as.... 

my thoughts on why I feel that it's so important that teachers move forward with the technology. 

So here it goes.... 

      As a teacher, I strive to use the tools provided to me to help my students to become useful, productive, and creative citizens in our society. With technology moving fast and education struggling to stay caught up with policies and most importantly funding, I find myself in a balancing act. I don't want my classroom to be the same as they have been, straight rows of desks, all paper/pencil and memorization of facts. I want them to learn to be productive, and take an interest in their own learning. 

     Technology provides student with opportunities to create, develop, design, and communicate unlike any other time in educational history. Because of this belief, I have used every opportunity provided to me to improve myself as a teacher. Exploring new sites, reading blogs from educational technology websites, writing grants, going to technology conferences and ed tech cadres....I make myself a student of the technology so that I can better guide my students into the digital world.

      I have found that I am often not the expert in the room - students take what I give them and run with it, I am just the facilitator. By the end they are showing me things that I hadn't even looked at yet! Our students are digital learners, they have grown up surrounded everything electronics, they do not know life without ipods, cell phones, laptops, and internet access everywhere. They are a new generation of learners that our education is behind in understanding, and it's our jobs as educators to catch up as much as we can and be there to help guide them. 

And that is where I'm coming from!