Introduction
As Doyle (2020) states that teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement. I believe it is a description of my beliefs, values and how can I support these beliefs and values in the classroom. Hoover (2017) emphasized that teaching philosophy transfers a professional image about teachers teaching and provides them with ways to purposefully locate their teaching methods to articulate their teaching beliefs and values to their students and colleagues. However, my teaching philosophy is built based on various conditions and circumstances that I faced and experienced in my teaching practices during my study duration. As a future teacher, I am considering students as my main focus who need to be provided with diverse strategies, methods and techniques to meet their learning needs. Therefore, my teaching philosophy depends on the five aspects, which are teaching, learning, curriculum, classroom management and assessment.
Teaching
I believe that teachers play a fundamental role in helping students achieve success and Meador (2019) agreed about teachers' crucial role on students' success in the classroom. I strongly agree with the Chinese proverb that says “A thousand teachers, a thousand approach". In another word, as every teacher is unique, I believe their methods, strategies and approaches will vary. According to my teaching experience, two common approaches are being implemented in the classroom, but they differ in the implementation method based on teachers various strategies and techniques. The first approach is teacher-centered, which mainly focus on the teacher as the basic source information. The second approach is learner-centered approach that focuses on students as independent learners in the learning process.
However, I believe that in both approaches, teacher is the one who decides what students need to learn. In addition, I am sure that positive interaction with students is very important. As a teacher, I have to treat students as equal and avoid showing discriminate against them. A professional demeanor appears when teachers take their responsibilities seriously and treat students equally, which makes students trust them and show respect (Zeiger, 2018). For example, I have practiced teaching in a high school and it was one of my best teaching practices. I used to treat the low achiever students the same way that I treated the higher achiever students. The influence of this treatment was obvious on the low achievers' behavior. Their self-confidence increased and they were trying to improve their performance by participating and asking questions.
Learning
I believe that all students are talented or gifted in something. Based on my teaching practice experience, each student has a special learning style that differs from others. Thus, I need to provide an appropriate learning environment and activities for all learning styles where students can grow socially, mentally, emotionally and physically. This can be done through planning and preparing for the lessons, which gives me an opportunity to consider all students' learning styles, abilities and needs to create suitable classroom activities. As a teacher, I need to create a plan for each lesson based on my learning objectives in which I prepare relevant activities to achieve these objectives. For example, preparing learning games relevant to the learning objectives, in which students learn with fun.
I remember the "Stations" game that I implemented with my students, which included all students learning styles. I divided the tables into four stations. In each station students needed to perform different things such as reading and writing, drawing, ordering pictures and acting. Also, the games required quick movement, where students had to finish on the specified time to move to other stations. Additionally, another important point that I must consider in learning is my learning objectives. Moreover, creating supportive leaning environment is important because it builds students' own confidence and encourage them to be independent learners. This can be done through providing rich environment by creating colorful displays to enhance and motivate students to learn.
Curriculum
For curriculum effective development and schools success, I believe that teachers must be involved in curriculum development. This development must include goals, objectives, resources, and assessments (Meier, 2018). I firmly believe that teacher is the most important person in the curriculum implementation. Teachers' experiences and knowledge are the central to the curriculum development. However, curriculum involves between teachers and learners, learners with learners and learners with curriculum content and this means that making meaningful learning is more important than learning transmission. Therefore, in my teaching practices, I used to link the topics provided in the curriculum with students' real life to gain knowledge and experience through understanding and interpreting. As a future teacher, I need to support learning because teachers are most knowledgeable about teaching and their responsibility is introducing the curriculum in the classroom. Additionally, I should provide my opinion and ideas based on students' performance in the classroom and in their assessments to be incorporated into the curriculum for better improvements.
Classroom management
Managing learning is not an easy mission and requires lots of efforts and patience. Based on my teaching experience, implementing appropriate methods and strategies to manage students is important. Applying various learning games and positive reinforcement strategies has a significant and positive influence on students' behavior. Learning games are nontraditional method of learning. It promotes active learning that increases students' performance development. It helps teachers to engage and attract students' attention to foster their learning process (Wheadon, 2017). Furthermore, positive reinforcement is the key factor of managing students' behavior.
It is a useful strategy because it motivates students to behave politely and participate as well during the lessons actively. It is one of the most effective behavior modification techniques that teacher can use to encourage their students to be responsible and complete tasks or homework without arguing (Morin, 2020). For example, during my teaching practices, I used to implement the black board strategy. Students needed to behave politely and participate quietly; otherwise, they will receive red points on their boards and will not be rewarded by the end of the lesson. This strategy worked effectively, it helped me to engage and manage my students during the lessons.
Assessment
I believe that assessment is another important tool that must be included in each teacher teaching plans. In my teaching practice durations, I have noticed that assessing students allowed me to determine whether I need to spent more time on a particular lesson, concept or idea with my students or not. In addition, it provided an opportunity for me to know my students levels, needs and if I need to give more attention on certain students. However, I used to implement two types of assessments, which were formative and summative. The formative assessments can be applied after delivering new concept or idea to check students' understanding of this idea or concept. On the other hand, the summative assessments should be implemented at the end of a lesson or unit to assess students' comprehension of this lesson or unit. These two types of assessments helped me to determine whether I have achieved my learning objectives or not, the areas that I need to focus on and students' abilities that need to be improved.
Moreover, as a teacher, I should implement various feedback strategies such as peer feedback, students' self-feedback and constructive feedback. Based on my experience, assessing students' learning showed me the crucial impact on students' success. While monitoring and assessing my students, I was giving them written and oral feedbacks immediately after presenting their work such as presentations or even their written activities. My feedback was highlighting their weaknesses and strengths in which students had a chance to know the areas they needed to focus on to improve. I have seen the impact of providing students with feedback on their performance. They were able to increase their performance in various aspects such as tests, projects and presentations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, teaching philosophy is a document that should be changed and developed as teachers teaching experience builds on (Doyle, 2020). It is a collection of teachers' beliefs and values about teaching strategies and methods. In my teaching philosophy, I considered the five important aspects teaching, learning, curriculum, classroom management and assessment because of my beliefs about their importance. Teaching approaches, students' learning styles, preparing appropriate environment, activities, positive reinforcement and management strategies and assessing students all are important and connected together somehow in enhancing students learning process.