Philosophy of Teaching

Philosophy of Teaching

Matthew Walker

College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University

EDRD 610: Content Literacy for English Language Learners, PreK-12

Dr. Sujin Kim, Dr. Woomee Kim, & Dr. Manqian Zhao

February 28th, 2024

Introduction

Paolo Freire asserts that “Dialogue cannot exist… in the absence of a profound love for the world and its people” (Freire, 2018, p. 88). To Freire, dialogue as a practice disrupts bias and serves as a bridge between people of different backgrounds, languages, ethnicities, and cultures. I posit that, if practiced in the classrooms of our nations’ 131,000 classrooms, dialogue can pave the way toward a more just and equitable society (Census, 2020).

In addition to the democratic achievements dialogue can help attain, dialogue serves as a gateway to effective collaboration, which is the cornerstone of all learning in my classroom and beginning of my philosophy of teaching. My philosophy of teaching has three sections: Collaboration as a Ladder to Higher Learning, Identity as a Conduit for Confident Meaning-Making, and My Own Learning. In the first section, Collaboration, there five subsections that emphasize overarching principles of my pedagogical strategies, all of which should be read through a lens of collaboration. Identity as a Conduit for Confident Meaning-Making explores the affirmation of student identity, confidence, and meaning-making. My Own Learning discusses how I plan to continue to grow as an educator after the completion of this master’s certificate.

Collaboration as a Ladder to Higher Learning

Overview

In the 21st-century classroom, dialogue is not only essential, but rather the foundation to all effective learning experiences. To dialogue is to take “part in a conversation or discussion to resolve a problem” (Grammar.com, n.d). Dialogue should be a daily, situated practice for students. It is in this context that dialogue serves as the door through which collaborative learning can occur.

Too often in schools, students are not challenged because they are assigned tasks to be completed individually. These tasks are typically matched to the students’ level of cognitive development. However, as Vygotsky argues, learning must challenge students to perform cognitive functions that are beyond their level of development (Walqui, 2006). To Vygotsky, it is in this area beyond an individual’s level of development in which all learning takes place. How is a student to cognitively think beyond their own capabilities? This is best done through student-to-student collaboration (Walqui, 2006).

A Conducive Learning Environment

Collaboration is the foundation of all learning. Effective collaboration, however, can only occur in a conducive environment. In my classroom students sit in groups of three to four with desks arranged to face one another. This fosters collaboration in addition to the development of peer relationships. I have movable chairs in my classroom to promote flexible grouping for students that is activity and scaffold dependent. Over the next couple of years. I will continue to culturally diverse art and poems, as well as welcoming messages in student’s native languages. Such decorations are important to have in the classroom, however, these are only effective if they are symbols of a deeper identity validation that comes about in an inclusive, collaborative environment (Walqui, 2006).

Collaboration Pedagogical Strategies

Through peer-to-peer conversations about content and skills, students can achieve higher levels of meaning-making than they could on their own (Walqui, 2006). In my classroom I utilize collaboration to enhance a student’s sense of identity as well as promote learning through the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). There is a limit on what an individual can achieve alone, but learning can exceed this individual limit when a student works with one or more other students and teachers (Walqui, 2006). When teaching a lesson, students will engage with one another to collaborate through an engaging warm-up, collaborative problem-solving activities, and discussion. Frequently, warm-ups are a primary source distributed on physical paper for students to analyze together and solve an exciting problem. Did President Tyler die of poison? Let’s analyze and find out! Hooks such as these get students engaged at the beginning of class and allow them to work together to solve a historical dilemma. Collaborative activities, such as the USS Maine Murder Mystery, teach students content that would ordinarily be completed through direct instruction. Instead, students must decide if Spain sunk the USS Maine or if it was an accident and analyze how it led to war. Frequently, classroom knowledge is collaboratively reviewed at the end of class utilizing a graphic organizer. In this way, knowledge is co-constructed as we decide together what we have learned and what was important to us.

Throughout the course of the week, students have numerous peer-to-peer conversations, group discussions, and class wide review of what we have learned together. Further, academic vocabulary is frequently reviewed in the context of learning. Teaching and reviewing vocabulary as new terms are discovered is far more effective than pre-teaching it (Llosa, 2023).

Collaborative Scaffolding

To aid student learning, I provide scaffolds to all the learners in my classroom that benefit not only culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students but also all early adolescents. These scaffolds include graphic organizers, sentence starters, collaborative scaffolds including turn and talk and think, pair, and share, and writing structure scaffolds such as RACE: restate the question, answer the question completely, cite evidence, and explain. It is important in my classroom to value the learning capabilities of CLD learners and recognize with the right scaffolds and effective collaboration, students with limited English proficiency can achieve or exceed similar learning levels as their monolingual peers.

Collaborative Assessment

An extension of collaboration I plan incorporate in my classroom is co-construction of assessments. Next year I plan to have students unpack standards with me and co-construct learning targets as well as what success looks like for each target. This will give students power and input over their own learning process. All learning is co-constructed through collaboration, assessment should not be any different (Walqui, 2006). It is vital that assessment is fair for all students, including CLD learners. As such, inviting students into the assessment process can lead to equitable outcomes for all, in addition to important metacognitive practices being instilled in the mindset of learners.

Collaborative, Contextual Practice of Academic Language

Language is complex and varies in both form and meaning in different contexts. As such, language must be used and practiced in specific settings (Gibbons, 2023). In addition, Vygotsky argues that all language is dialogical in nature, meaning it originates as ideas to be spoken aloud, and is best practiced spoken aloud as well (Walqui, 2006). For these reasons, student-to-student talk while using academic language is vital the classroom. Gibbons explains, as "learners have more chances to interact with other speakers, and therefore the amount of language they use is also increased" (2015, p. 49-50). Language in a history course should sound like historians working. My students practice using words like “evidence” when they make claims verbally and use content-based words like “consumer credit” to describe troubles leading to the Great Depression. In this way, students develop a discourse that can be used not only in Social Studies classes, but also out in the world wherever social science concepts are discussed in the public and private areas of life. On a practical level, much of this language must be used student-to-student, as communicating with peers is a unique discourse, one that cannot be replicated in student-to-teacher talk (Gibbons, 2015).

As students learn to utilize specific academic language, it is important that learning is offered to them in multiple mediums. Multiliteracies are diverse ways of offering course materials so as students to deepen their understanding (Rajendram, 2021). Students will have the opportunity to see academic language in use in videos, on graphic organizers, as well as through computer games. These multiliteracies help students learn how different academic words take on different meanings in different contexts.

Identity as a Conduit for Confident Meaning-Making

Overview

My teaching philosophy centers around a timeless truth: as human beings, every student I encounter is deserving of my time, my respect, my enthusiasm, and a smile. This is the inverse of the listless cultural idiom, “respect is earned.” As students learn respect can be given to their peers before it is earned, they learn to trust one another and take pride in the classroom community they help create. This leads to a classroom where dignity is constantly bestowed upon one another, and learners can gain the confidence needed to dialogue and take risks in their academic journey. The first ingredient in this successful, identity-based classroom atmosphere is myself as I strive to build relationships with each of my students. I will often take a few minutes at the beginning of class to just talk with my students and catch up. I utilize this focus on inclusivism and combine it with effective collaboration to foster an effective learning environment.

Removing My Own Bias

To create a truly inclusive, student-centered classroom for all learners, including CLD learners, I must recognize the cultural assumptions that I bring to work with me every day. Culturally in the United States, there is a strong bias that favors a monolingual perspective of language. It is all too easy for a member of this society, including a teacher like me, to subconsciously view a bilingual speaker as different or incapable when compared to their monolingual peers (Baker & Wright, 2021). To create an inclusive environment that values and welcomes all learners, I must recognize each student as unique in their own way and, with proper scaffolding and collaboration, capable of incredible achievement.

The Affirmation of Student Identity

Maintaining a student-centered focus means utilizing all aspects of a child’s life to bring new meaning to language and academic content. This includes a student’s cultural and ethnic background. As the classroom teacher, I will strive to respect a child’s native language and incorporate ways for students to use it in the classroom. This can be supported by taking the time to build relationships with families of CLD learners as well as utilizing cultural artifacts including songs and art in instruction (Kim & Plotka, 2016). I plan to next year use a comprehensive student survey to develop a funds of knowledge database to incorporate into classroom instruction. Student learning will be improved in my classroom as they make meaning using their own cultural background in class through this approach (Moll, et al., 1992).

Confident Meaning-Making

Another way I aim to affirm a student’s identity is to guiding students to make new meaning through translanguaging. Translanguaging, using words or phrases from a native language while speaking a new language is an effective method increasing academic achievement when a higher language proficiency is not present (Yilmaz, 2019). Academically, translanguaging increases the learning capability of a student as it gives them more words to express their ideas and develop new concepts. Besides being an effective pedagogical tool, translanguaging allows students to celebrate their own cultural identity in the classroom (Yilmaz, 2019). This leads to improved confidence as learners get the chance to be an expert in their own language (recent Saturday). Students practicing their first language also get the chance to improve their L1 proficiency, which leads to a greater number of words from which to transfer into their English language proficiency (Baker & Wright, 2021). Research has made clear that bolstering a student’s L1 leads to a stronger English language proficiency over time (Palmer & Martinez, 2016).

As students gain confidence in the classroom, meaning making is bolstered in significant ways. As they take risks through collaborative strategies, bestow one another with dignity and respect, and gain confidence through relationships and strategies such as translanguaging, learning enters quite a new place in my classroom.

My Own Learning

It is vital that I continue my own learning as a professional. With CLD learners and an ever-changing population, I cannot just teach the way I was taught or even the ways I have taught in the past. I plan to stay current with the latest research regarding education and improve my understanding of culturally and linguistically diverse teaching strategies. For example, as I learned in my linguistics class last summer, there is more figurative language in texts than we realize. Understanding figurative language is difficult for CLD students, and implementing strategies to aid in this effort is essential (Rafzar & Rumenapp, 2014).

I will complete my master’s certificate this spring and continue to attend professional developments. I also plan on leading several professional developments for teachers at my school about CLD teaching strategies in partnership with the English to Speakers of Other Languages teachers. In addition to staying current, I seek to be reflective in my practice and ask administrators and colleagues for feedback on what can be better in my classroom.

In conclusion, I hope to enter my classroom everyday with an attitude of humility, recognizing the dignity of all my students. I aim to leave my cultural biases at the door and remain reflective in my practices toward students. I plan to affirm my students’ identities daily and create a collaborative learning environment. Through pedagogical strategies including translanguaging and collaboration, the learners in my classroom can achieve at high levels with rigorous content (Walqui, 2006). Through co-construction I hope to give my students a voice in their own assessment, creating equitable outcomes. In my experience, teaching is an exercise in self-humility and self-learning. As such, I hope to remain a reflective, life-long learner and educator.

Chavez-Moreno, L. (2024, February). Enhancing Multilingual Learners’ Critical-Racial Consciousness in Stem Education. ACESTEM Saturday Session.

Dialog vs. dialogue. Grammar.com. (n.d.). https://www.grammar.com/dialog_vs._dialogue

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 50th anniversary edition. Bloomsbury Academic.

Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English language learners in the mainstream classroom. Heinemann.

Kim, S., & Plotka, R. (2016). Myths and facts regarding second language acquisition in early childhood. Dimensions of Early Childhood, 44(1), 18–24.

Llosa, L. (2023, March). Supporting multilingual learners in the science classrooms. ACESTEM Saturday Session.

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534

Palmer, D. K., & Martínez, R. A. (2016). Developing biliteracy: What do teachers really need to know about language? Language Arts, 93(5), 379–385.

Razfar, A., & Rumenapp, J. C. (2014). Applying linguistics in the classroom: A sociocultural approach. Routledge.

Rajendram, S (2021). Chapter 6: A pedagogy of multiliteracies and its role in English language education. In P. Vinogradova & J. K. Shin (Ed.), Contemporary foundations for teaching English as an additional language pedagogical approaches and classroom applications (pp. 151 - 159). Essay, Routledge.

Walqui, A. (2006). Scaffolding instruction for English language learners: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(2), 159–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050608668639

Yilmaz, T. (2019). Translanguaging as a pedagogy for equity of language minoritized students. International Journal of Multilingualism, 18(3), 435–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2019.1640705