LEARNING MANIFESTO

I have long been an advocate for problem-based learning, with an emphasis on a student-centered, teacher-facilitated environment. After many years teaching Social Studies I realized that in the direct-teach model there is no one that likes to hear my voice so much as myself; that nothing drives learning more than actually doing, so I modeled my classroom to mirror a cooperative learning environment where students work together to solve issues relevant to the world today.

Collaborative.

Real world-driven.

Student-centered.

These are the tenets by which I try to run a blended, flipped classroom in the 21st century. As our society has evolved, the classroom has largely stayed the same. If I walk over to, say, the math wing at our school and observe one of the classes I will most likely see the same structure that has dominated post-World War 2 education: teacher-centered, direct teach, rowed desks, pencils and textbooks. Very little has changed, yet our society has changed drastically. Why hasn't the public education system evolved as well? Is it out of custom? Is it a result of drastically underfunded public education? Or is it a simple case of the "That's how I learned" mentality? Whatever the reason, I strive to have a classroom that mirrors society as it changes.

Blended learning is a key component to my classroom. Being a member of a Verizon Innovation Campus, students have the fortune of having data-enabled devices wherever they go. So while we are actually in class, we do the activities and learning that require hands-on, one-to-one instruction. Everything else, the "paper and pencil" activities and such that permeate traditional education, is then converted to extension and supplemental activities through Blended Learning. Building a robot in class? At home, use your device to code a virtual model of the bot to navigate a maze. Coming up with a new design? Use in-class time to collaborate with your peers and innovate using online tools.

In these days of uncertainty when it comes to traditional settings, it's now more than ever that our classroom instruction evolves to fit in with modern times. I don't consider that "innovation" as much as plain ol' common sense.

LEARNING PHILOSOPHY

My learning philosophy has shifted significantly since I started teaching 13 years ago. I started with a fixed mindset, determined to teach the students like I was taught. I mean, if it worked for me then it should work for them, too, right? Teacher-centered, direct teach, rote drill-and-skill, memorization and recall. Looking back at my lesson plans from the mid part of last decade I saw none of the higher level Bloom's taxonomy verbs that I believed I was hitting. There was no analyze or create; instead, it was filled with identify and describe. Even knowing I did relatively well those first few years of my teaching career I still blanch at the mediocrity of what I was doing.

In the past, I have had observers and student teachers with me who have asked me to write down or succinctly tell them what my teaching philosophy was. I could never do it. I did not think of teaching in that way; I had no "philosophy". Still today, I do not like to think of a teaching-learning relationship in that way. My teaching is a collection of my growth as an educator coupled with my response to student need. I did not set out with a "differentiation plan" in place for my classroom, even though differentiation is evident from the outset; it was just me responding to student need and doing what I always thought of as good teaching.

Having been in the Apple-Lamar initiative since the summer of 2019, I am starting to pull out aspects of my teaching that I believe begin to form the basis of my learning philosophy. There are five tenets that comprise the framework of my instruction:

Social-emotional Learning
Student-Centered
Skill based
Real-world application
Growth mindset

I am still hesitant with that list and I expect it to change over time (which is ideal, considering my last tenet). Quantifying something that I believe to be just good practice into list format still seems odd to me, but I am starting to see the importance of doing so. Being self-aware of my own beliefs can only allow me further growth as an educator, and to whatever life has in store for me after.