Reflection piece

Nancy Murray

My Teaching Philosophy
A good teacher must know her subjects but most importantly know how to encourage interest and learning of her students. Through my expertise in my discipline I help my students learn basic knowledge about the retail industry, and then comprehend different retailing principles. I encourage them to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate all that they read, hear and experience in their own work settings. (Bloom, 1956). I love the retail industry, the courses I teach, and I try to make the subjects come alive for my students.

In order to inspire learning for my students, I am also a learner. I am constantly learning of new retailing aspects through my current and former students. I connect with my students through their career aspirations and career paths. Coming directly from industry I am able to give them insights and help them plan for their career goals. They are my link back to the retail industry. I eagerly and willingly learn from my students as they learn with me.

I believe I can make a positive impact in each of my student's life, by first treating them as customers of learning. The customer is always first. Their needs are number one on my priority list. I take the role of service to my students. My service to them is also to set outcomes and goals high, expecting the best. My students will usually then push themselves to please me, and ultimately, pleasing themselves and their future employers.

My view of teaching has matured in my six years of teaching at UW-Stout and has become clearer in this last year as I have been studying teaching and learning. I began teaching courses like I remembered being taught as a student; mostly lecture based. I have found that this method becomes boring for not only the student, but the teacher too. I have since learned of, experimented and put into practice active learning techniques that elevate students' excitement of the subject matter and essentially their learning. Teaching is something I believe can never be fully mastered as it always will have room for improvement and growth. Integrating not only more active learning but better active learning will always be an aspect of teaching I will strive for improvement.

Through a recent self-study of my freshman level classroom using Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Style Survey, I have found these students mostly favor visual learning. I have been increasingly adding in visual-aids to my examples when beforehand I verbally explained the scenarios. The course content hasn't changed nor the rigor, I am just putting forth more effort to help my students learn. I will continue to access my students learning and work to improve my teaching to help the students learn better.

Philosophy on Learning

The good teacher knows and understands students, how they develop and learn. I have seen that my students are motivated by how new information, principles and theories will relate to their future careers. Students perform better when the motivation to learn is intrinsic; they want to learn for their own future, not just for my class and for a grade (Ficher, 1985).

I feel I cannot continue to inspire learning without being a learner myself. I used to define student learning as a teacher giving information and the students getting the information like sponge soaking up water only to wring it out when asked to (like on a test). I now realize that this information sharing is only the beginning of teaching and learning and certainly only a small part of learning. A student memorizing the information is not always learning because learning requires thinking. I now better understand that a teacher's role is to help the student learn to think and be motivated to think; then they will want to learn more and will become life-long learners.

Students can retain and recall new learning if they have something to ≥hook≤ it to (Gagne). Students demonstrate significant learning when they are able to retrieve and relate the new learning to other areas and make associations. The different cognitive levels of learning such as knowledge, then comprehension, then application, then analysis and finally synthesis (Bloom, 1956) builds off (or ≥hooks≤) to the former level. It is important that the classroom is taught and managed at the appropriate level(s) as well as then the students evaluated at that level.

I teach three separate courses which are at three different levels. One is a freshman level course where basic knowledge and comprehension are outcomes. Another on a sophomore/junior level which builds off of the freshman level course and the students make applications and ≥connect the dots≤. The third course is an advanced senior level course where students build off of many prior classes as well as their own experiences to create a new business and marketing plan with financial data to support it. This last course is at the synthesis level. Each of these courses are challenging and rigorous for the level of student that is enrolled in the course and links to other courses which will in turn enhance their learning.

In conclusion I view teaching and learning as I view the game of golf. It may look easy and effortless as a spectator, but once you try it and desire to excel at it, it takes lots of practice, dedication and time to perfect.