Lindsey VanFossen

Philosophy of Teaching
The purpose of education is to ensure that todays youth are prepared with the
requisite knowledge, skills, and work ethic associated with a global society. Educators serve
as the facilitators to fostering generations of socially responsible citizens who value both
affecting change and giving back to their communities. Essentially, the purpose of education
is embodied in the esteem we award to committed, life-long learners. Life-long learners are
the drivers, leaders, and models of an ideal community. They discourage complacency and
instead replace it with innovation, intrinsic motivation, and a desire for change. Thus,
education is the basic foundation to ensuring constant societal growth and evolution.
It is my belief that a classroom without engagement is a classroom of missed
opportunities. Accordingly, I employ a variety of different techniques in order to engage
students in relevant work. That is, work that both reflects state standards for graduation and
connects to life outside of the classroom. I capitalize on missed opportunities by connecting
student interest in the world to student interest in the classroom. I do so by adopting an
educational approach (i.e. problem-based learning) that values students who both take control
of their learning and serve as the brains to the construction of their own knowledge. More
specifically, I particularly enjoy utilizing current events in the classroom as a means to
teaching larger content themes and encouraging student thought as to how they can use their
rights and responsibilities as U.S. citizens to address world problems and affect change. The
driving idea behind this philosophy is that students who can see the applicability of their
learning are more likely to put in the effort needed to become experts on the topic at hand.
Thus, by bringing the outside in, student learning is likely to increase in both depth and
longevity as they begin to realize that content specifics and real-world knowledge go hand in
hand. Similarly, I believe this approach is likely to overhaul the way students perceive
education because of its ability to highlight the real-world applicability of content knowledge.

Lindsey VanFossen
As both a means to meeting the demands of state standards and the new PARCC and
AIR assessments, I favor structuring classroom time in a way that enables students to reach
DOK levels 3 and 4 on a regular basis. I regularly reflect on how my lessons objectives and
content align (or do not align) with test specifications. Currently, 81% of assessments focus
on DOK level 1 whereas 50% of the new state tests are composed of DOK level 2 questions
with a ceiling of DOK level three. Thus, by aiming for DOK levels 3 and 4 on a regular
basis, my students should be well prepared to do well on the new state tests. Additionally,
my goal of constantly striving for higher DOK levels aligns with my previously mentioned
thoughts on engagement. Students whose work load more frequently involves complex
reasoning (i.e. analyzing, making connections across time and place, citing evidence, etc.)
and extended thinking via participating in simulations, studying alternative perspectives, and
making connections across content areas are more likely to be truly engaged in their
education. This sort of work load moves beyond the surface level and challenges students to
think beyond what they already know. Consequently, with the appropriate level of
scaffolding, students stand to gain much more in terms of academic growth and achievement
than if their work solely focused on the answer (i.e. DOK levels 1 and 2).
Similarly, my frequent employment of higher DOK levels aligns with my
incorporation of the common core standards associated with the social studies. The new
PARCC tests require that students be able to utilize their reading and writing skills to analyze
social studies content. Many of the multiple choice questions and essays ask students to
prove what they have learned, validate it, and go deeper. Consequently, summaries of
information are not valued. In order to prepare students for both this type of questioning and
life beyond the classroom, I feel that students need to be consistently writing in some way
throughout a social studies course. Moreover, the writing assignments need to be less about
mere summary (DOK level 1) and more about embodying the practices of a historian (i.e.

Lindsey VanFossen
building and supporting arguments or DOK levels 3 and 4). Thus, I regularly provide
students with essential questions that they are either to work with throughout a lesson or more
broadly a unit by gathering evidence from both primary and secondary sources to support
their answers. Jigsaws are a particular teaching technique that allow students the opportunity
to collect a large base of content knowledge (and learn from each other) without seeing
myself as the ultimate source of knowledge.
My techniques for engaging students in relevant work directly support what I feel are
my strengths as a teacher. I employ a student-centered teaching style that perceives the role
of a teacher as a facilitator rather than the source of all knowledge. That is, I am far more
comfortable when my students are talking than when I am. Less teacher talk time and more
student talk time means that students in turn become advocates for their own learning. Thus,
as the source of their own knowledge, they are encouraged to assume and stand to gain much
from a high level of engagement within the classroom.
Lastly, my affinity for employing a problem-based learning approach to education
mirrors my passion for supporting and utilizing a curriculum that values the incorporation of
a global perspective. As social studies is essentially the study of people, this is especially
important. Social studies is the study of how we interact, establish governments, and decide
what is best for a population as a whole. Thus, every young adult should be equipped with
the knowledge and skills they need to critically analyze our institutions and underlying belief
systems in order to identify exactly where they fit within the larger world and how they can
affect change. I aim to achieve this by constantly incorporating both local and global
perspectives to content material so that students come to realize that there is no one right way
or answer to a world problem and that a world problem is just thatworldly. In turn, I hope
that my students will embrace their title as a world citizen by recognizing that we are not as
different from each other as we sometimes perceive ourselves to be.