Philosophy of Education

Teaching Philosophy and Strategies

My goal as a teacher is to encourage students to become lifelong, independent learners. I do this by connecting the classroom to students' real-life experiences, by creating a context of engagement and participation, and by modeling myself as a passionate lifelong learner.
I believe that students learn by doing and that the more writing assignments can be connected to real-life contexts the more engaged they will be as learners. I employ a multiple-draft process pedagogy, in which students are encouraged to think of their writing as an ongoing process rather than a virtuoso performance. To encourage the transition from description to analysis, I often begin composition courses with a personal, autobiographical writing assignment. Students quickly come to see what they have unconsciously always known-that the world is a system of signs which we are constantly reading, interpreting, and analyzing. Since students are often more "visually" ...