MY UPDATED TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My teaching philosophy is centered around the idea that the student is ultimately  the one responsible for his or her learning.  The role of the teacher should be as facilitator.  The teacher should provide the student with tools to guide learning.  These tools are vast in nature depending on what subject is being taught.  For example, in the area of mathematics education, the tools would include problem-solving models and instruction in the use of technology.  

In an in-person class, my view of an ideal classroom is one in which the teacher uses a rather Socratic method of teaching.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method  I visualize the teacher answering a student question with a question to invoke critical reflection on the part of the student.  However, there are a couple of things that prevent this method from being a common reality in today’s classroom.  First, there is not enough time to cover the required material if there is a lot of individual reflection of each problem situation.  Second, today’s students want instant answers.  They are used to “Googling It”  and getting immediate results.   They want to see how to do the problem, but don’t want to reflect on the problem-solving that goes into it.  They see the answer to the problem as the desired end.  I see the problem-solving that goes into getting the answer as the focus. Further, getting students to share their approaches with other students is valuable. As students witness other approaches, they are broadening their experiences with problem-solving and are essentially adding to their “toolbox” to draw upon in future problem solving situations. 

In many ways I see that online education as an ideal opportunity to achieve the goal of making students responsible for their own learning.  Online education is definitely student-centered. They must be active and participative in classroom assignments.  They aren’t permitted to sit in the back of a classroom somewhere  “learning by osmosis”. Students must take advantage of tools within the online course to direct their own learning experience.  Again, the role of the teacher should be as facilitator.  For me, personally, this is a giant leap out of my comfort zone.  I welcome the challenge in creating the tools needed to enable students to learn in the online setting.
After the EDU255 course, I have truly been challenged in creating the tools that are needed to create a learning environment in the online setting.  I can foresee myself using a blog per course taught as a starting point.  I feel that a blog will be an opportunity for students to share ideas while I control the direction that the course goes in.  Again, I would be a facilitator of knowledge.  I would really look at online content that would be worthwhile.  Math is a little more difficult to incorporate technologies such as podcasts and social networking sites.  I see Jing as the most valuable since it is both audio and video based.  I would also embed appropriate YouTube videos in the blog.  Overall I see now that I can make a really rich online learning environment.