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Teaching

The Tact of Teaching: A Philosophy for Learning in Our Times

Forming a teaching philosophy has taken many years of direct experience and experiment, thoughtful reading, and reflective practice. My teaching practice reflects my interest in educational and moral philosophy. I see students as whole individuals who bring complexity to their roles as learners. My belief is that students must take responsibility for their own education. My contribution is to encourage students and provide them with an environment in which this may take place. Teaching and learning are parts of a whole process in which my students and I participate together, each of us as teacher and learner. For me, teaching is a calling.

The purpose of education is to help students to live successfully in their lives, meet environmental and social changes, contribute in a constructive and caring way to their societies, and live mindfully and responsibly in this democratic and technological society. Like John Dewey, I see the teacher as a guide on this journey, encouraging and providing students with educational experiences through constructive and experimental methods, problem-solving, and intellectually and emotionally growth-promoting questioning. Through writing and writing to think, students can examine the natural human processes and connect their thinking processes with social processes.

As an online teacher (since 1993) of writing, literature, and communication theory, I enjoy teaching with technology, which has challenged me greatly over the years. The online environment drew me to challenge my own classroom teaching methods and to embrace the details of creating learning environments through which students may move creatively in their struggle toward competence in writing, thinking, and communication. Here in the online environment, I was inspired to return to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in Education Policy and Leadership with an emphasis in Curriculum Theory in 1998. Currently, I am writing my dissertation on the lived experience of teaching online. I hope to make contributions to the online learning research and pedagogy in general as we look toward more humane and effective ways to design classes for optimal learning.

General Teaching Perspectives

As a woman, I believe in the importance of critical education as well. It's important to develop student identities that enable students to understand and come to some successful engagement with inequality, oppression, and power in the world. I believe that students could come to appreciate the dignity and condition of all peoples and develop a commitment to expanding basic human rights and responsibilities that come with our liberties. To this end, I incorporate action pedagogy and ethical discussions and questions into my teaching strategies. There are no value-free subjects in our schools, and I hope to make students aware of some of the issues relating to the disciplines I teach. This practice extends my teaching with tact and care.

Over the years of teaching online, I have seen the value in social interaction and have developed more skill at facilitating this. Specifically, I find opportunities to emphasize students' interacting with one another rather than only the subject matter and readings. Our learners can achieve the intellectual and emotional maturity through these constructive and critical activities. This strategy supports my notion that most of our knowledge is socially constructed and our understandings must reflect that we live in social groups with great diversity.

In spite of our fierce acceptance of separation of church and state, education has a moral and ethical dimension. While I do not subscribe to a particular religion in the classroom, I support the dignity of all human beings in exercising their rights and responsibilities to define their own spiritual/religious paths. It is important for our students to learn care in their critical thinking. As our resources and boundaries shrink, we are being challenged to understand and work with cultural and social differences, helping students learn to care for others and the environment becomes vital. There are no school subjects that are not affected by shrinking resources and boundaries and thus by the moral and ethical issues surrounding how these resources will be stewarded.

Technology is an area in which I have a special interest. While I subscribe to the position that all teachers must help students learn to use technology within their disciplines, learning to use technology responsibly is important. Students must learn the complex consequences of technology in our lives. While our technologies have made our lives easier in so many ways, they have alienated us from important, valued aspects of our lives. My responsibility in teaching in communication and liberal arts disciplines is to help students critique the role of technology in their lives as well as learn to use it responsibly and effectively.

Another area of my philosophy includes my care for my peers, my colleagues. As part of my own commitment to my virtual community, my obligations include mentoring and nurturing other teachers as well as I can. Not only do I love this work, but it is vital for my own spiritual growth. My mentoring contributions are important to me each term; they are a way for me to give back and express my gratitude for having been able to spend my adult life in such a gratifying and important calling.

Teaching/Professional Perspectives

Since 1970 when I taught my first university courses, I have been teaching writing, communication, and literature. I have taught writing at all levels, including developmental and graduate levels. My strengths seem to be in creating learning environments where students feel comfortable learning this critical skill. Students feel encouraged, valued, and supported in my classes. I see writing as an evolving skill, one that parallels growth in thinking abilities. Because of this approach, my students write considerably more in my writing classes than is usually required, and the grades reflect this “writing to learn” approach. However, I would like to change this balance.

Over the years, I have struggled to become better at teaching writing and thinking in my classes. I am a voracious reader in my discipline and have incorporated many concepts from education, such as classroom assessment techniques, to improve my teaching methods. In fact, I have adapted many classroom assessment techniques to my online classes. Continually, I experiment with new strategies to test what may improve learning. I tend to favor constructivist techniques in general as they parallel my own philosophy about teaching and learning. As our schools continue to set high standards for our students and teachers and face limited resources, my own teaching and learning, as well as assumptions, are continually challenged.

Accordingly, I believe my primary strength as a teacher has been my ability to develop techniques to help struggling students discover, articulate, and examine their impressions and ideas—about literature and their own personal experiences—and to communicate them effectively for their audiences. Students who succeed in developing fundamental writing and reading abilities experience growth in maturity and self-confidence. Over the years, my experiences have confirmed for me that in freshman and sophomore years, where teachers must continually reassess the effectiveness of their methods and where students acquire the most basic learning skills, the most skilled teaching and most fundamental learning occur.

In 1998, UMUC published my Guide to Writing and Research, my own contribution to help students learn to write. This guide incorporates my experiences from teaching writing over a 30-year career and the important lessons learned. The book reflects my support of constructive strategies for teaching writing, to provide help to students and to give the non-writing teachers a tool to use in their classrooms. Its continued popularity with students and faculty at UMUC and Park University speaks for itself.

As is my habit, each year I set goals for myself to improve my teaching. My specific goals in the coming year relate to improving the learning environments in my classes through better assessment of students and myself. To this end, I have prepared a prime trait analysis (PTA) for each of my class assignments, resulting in more specific criteria for writing assignments and classroom participation. Constructing a PTA scale makes grading more consistent and fair; saves time in grading and is more efficient; diagnosis strengths and weaknesses very specifically; and tracks changes in student performance over several semesters so I can see how changes in my teaching affect student performance.

Additionally, I present my research annually at the Society for Phenomenology and Human Sciences (SPHS) Conference, as well as conferences on distance learning. I am writing my doctoral dissertation and hope to begin the research phase this fall.

Summary

My teaching goals will continue to include delivering high quality instruction and setting high standards for my students in both the traditional and online classrooms. The challenge is always in keeping up with institutional goals in a way that enables me to continue to develop as a professional and to continue my research. Teaching is my passion and has been for many decades, whether in the traditional classroom or online. I plan to continue teaching and to make my contributions to the conversations in the areas of pedagogy and instructional design, classroom assessment techniques, and faculty training.