It is my innate ideology and philosophy that all students have the physical and psychological capacity to learn any new information, concept, or task. The physical capacity stems from the functioning of the brain and the psychological capacity stems from the way we all process information. Research has shown that the brain processes 40% to 60% of what is visualized and what is done. Therefore, I feel that is it imperative to ensure that instruction in the primary school, middle school, secondary, and higher education sector incorporates more visual aids, demonstrates, and hands-on examples and experiences in order to help learners to understand educational concepts and to learn new and innovative skills. At the same time, each learner discovers new information at different levels and different paces. My goal as an instructor is to promote learning which will extend over into the lives of the student in their personal and professional lives. Therefore, as an instructor it is essential to utilize and implement certain types of methods of teaching in the education sector. One of the methods that I utilize in my instruction of learners is the asynchronous method rather than the synchronous method. As a current adjunct faculty member at a junior college, I have used the asynchronous method over the synchronous because of the benefits it provides for students. The asynchronous method as an instructor allows the environment to be geared towards a student-centered environment where the emphasis is based on the constructivist theory of promoting peer to peer interactions. When I have used the asynchronous method of instruction, it helped to promote a higher level of interactions. I believe that a high level of interaction will help students to balance between their personal lives and their educational lives as well as help to increase their level of using effective communication and team work to enhance their work ethic inside and outside of the educational setting.
In addition, it is important to incorporate a higher level of critical thinking skills at the middle, secondary, and post-secondary sector. One way of doing this would be the feedback method to which I have used in the classroom. It is my theory that students can increase their critical thinking skills when instructors use the Socratic feedback method instead of an informative feedback method. Research conducted by Maj Norman H. Pathode (2002) concluded that the usage of the Socratic method in the education sector, but particularly the higher education sector, is a useful way to help students “increase their level of performance” by showing them another way to go in order to gain more clarity and help increase their level of critical thinking. The Socratic Method offers the student the opportunity to think deeper into a task, concept, or the content. One illustration that would support this stems from an English 102 course that I taught during my spring semester as an adjunct instructor. During my lecture on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, I discussed how the letter alludes itself to the Declaration of Independence document. I began to discuss the clause in the Declaration of Independence in comparison with the Civil Rights era by conversing about the 3/5’s of a human being clause. One of the students, who were an African-American woman, was deeply appalled by the clause from the document. As the instructor, I inquired about why the student was appalled regarding the clause. After I explained to her and the rest of the class about the Enlightenment period and its reference to different perspectives, Western perspective versus other perspectives, I used the Socratic Method by asking her and the rest of the class, “What are your opinions about this clause?” “What can you take from this?” “How is the cause relevant to today’s society?” “Has this clauses become a relevant issue to how people think about other cultures and races, why or why not?”
As a result of this method of questioning, it pushed the students to become heavily involved in a professional discussion regarding the clause while at the same time using their skills to revert back to Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail. Therefore, when a student has asked me a question regarding a concept within the content, I have returned the answer by asking them a different question or reframing the question. The question allows them to dig deeper into their initial question. The Socratic method of feedback has been the best method of usage for me within the classroom.
In conclusion to my functional educational philosophy, it is also essential for instructors to provide a productive environment, whether online or traditional classroom environment, which is conducive to helping students to comprehend the content. Part of providing a productive environment includes the instructor’s knowledge of the content, being cultural competent which incorporates their level of cultural sensitivity and responsiveness, ensuring that the student’s self-esteem is paramount, stating measureable goals and objectives in the syllabi, establishing a daily routine with high expectations for the students, and implementing multiple levels of assessments and other teaching modalities (i.e. lectures, presentations, hands-on, webinars, case studies, etc), that align with the instructional objectives and outcomes.
