Teaching Philosophy Statement Essay

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

My passion for teaching, learning, and education began to develop at a very young age when I first became a 4-H member. The 4-H motto, “To Make The Best Better” has always been a philosophical statement that has guided both my personal and professional life since joining the 4-H organization. The multitude of leadership activities I was exposed to around the world as a 4-H member have had a direct impact on my success as an educator.

Confidence and Motivation

First and foremost, in order to make the best better, I constantly challenge myself to come up with new ideas and change my instructional practices to meet the unique needs each individual class presents. As a classroom teacher and Instructional Technologist

As a fifth-grade teacher, I designed a collaborative project aimed at assisting students with analyzing weather and climate. The climate project involved connecting students in Sherrills Ford, North Carolina with two additional classrooms in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin and Tokyo, Japan through email, blogs, and an online database system to identify weather patterns. As an instructional technologist, I addressed instructional design from two different perspectives. I developed hands-on projects that challenged students to expand upon the knowledge gained from classroom instruction including: a second grade GarageBand project where students composed songs using digital instruments, a fifth grade project where students used green screen technology to present guided virtual tours of landforms around the world, and a seventh grade project where students used the 3-D buildings feature in Google Earth to calculate the surface area of solid figures. I customized teacher training sessions based on the specific technology tools that were available at each specific school, and often researched grade-level specific objectives to provide a more personalized professional development experience. As a Director of Distance Learning, I have coordinated

While teaching at Sherrills Ford Elementary I co-coordinated with two fellow teachers to develop two community-based educational programs. The first program focused on providing additional reading and math tutoring services to entire families within a specific area of the Sherrills Ford community. The service area was home to higher populations of low-income families. The second program focused on improving interest in reading among elementary age boys by providing a combination of guest speakers, hands-on experiments, and by allowing participants to assist in ordering new books. I have volunteered as a youth soccer coach, coached six years of high school soccer, and currently work as a middle and high school soccer referee where I continue to maintain the same high expectations out of players, coaches, and fellow referees that I expect in the