I believe that each student is a matchless individual who needs a safe, encouraging environment to flourish. As an educator, my goal is to help students grow socially, emotionally, and intellectually to achieve their wildest dreams through gaining lifetime learning skills. Like the Progressive education philosophy, I believe children should learn by pursing answers for their questions through problem solving and critical thinking activities such as analyzing, synthesizing, classifying and predicting. Students need to discover for themselves and practice skills in different lifelike situations. In my classroom, students use hands-on activities, internet resources, and small group discussions. This creates an opportunity for individual discovery …show more content…
The students’ search for knowledge is assisted by my guidance and help whenever needed. Through providing access to information and having learning centers in the classroom; students are the ones leading the discussion. My role is to initiate these meaningful discussions and keep students on track. This will lead student to form conclusions about the world they live in. I provide each student with the needed tools to be capable and successful and believe in his or herself as a learner. To accomplish this, I present a curriculum that focuses on students' interests and is relevant to their lives. One way I do this is by inviting students to discuss the lessons and units they will study, then, they are given the opportunity to provide their input, ideas, and preferences. Students are also encouraged to set their own learning goals. By doing so, as a teacher, I can prepare richer activities which appeal to different learning styles. As learners, students are motivated to achieve their own goals. Students are looked at as active learners. One example of this was when I asked my high school ESL students to suggest the themes of the units they would like to learn about. I suggested ten themes and they suggested another ten. They voted on their favorite ones. Students worked in groups to present their goals for the course. These goals were displayed at the board and modified to the learning style that appealed to them. Later on, goals were displayed daily during class to remind them of the goals they set for