Giuseppina Di Martino

Professor Suk
Education Field Experience EDUC 230-02
Spring 2015
Personal Philosophy of Teaching and Learning
When I think of my time spent in school and my learning career, I have some mixed
feelings and different kinds of memories arise from the past. I have always loved school and up
until today I still recall clearly the moment I stepped into the building for the first time. I felt
proud and privileged. I couldnt wait to discover all the exciting tasks ahead and learn as much as
I could. I was hungry for knowledge and I believed I was in the right place surrounded by the
right people, or at least I thought I was. I always tried my best to be a good student but
sometimes things were not easy for me. Growing up in Italy during a time while the percentage
of analphabetism was still very high, I missed the necessary help at home from my parents. They
knew that school was important for me and my future, but they couldnt do much to facilitate my
work as a student. Besides, many of the teachers I had were focused solely on teacher -centered
methods of teaching leaving very little room for students initiatives and kept on going by the
book in the way they conducted their lessons. Not too much time was spent on trying to explain
things differently if they were not understood, so often I found myself in front of an
insurmountable wall, having to figure things out by myself since the required tools that should
have been given by the teacher were not there. Later on, in middle and high school, I was happily
surprised by the passion and professional preparation of some amazing teachers who crossed my
path who not only cared about me academically but as a person. They were inspiring and
supportive but at the same time they provided structure and set high expectations for the entire
class. Those teachers reinforced my desire to be an educator one day, and they gave me the way
to picture different teaching techniques that I had not known before.
The classroom environment I hope to create one day when I am going to be a teacher is
going to be based on reciprocal respect among students and between students and teacher.
Everyone should feel happy to come to my classroom and not dread it. The learning experience
will be centered on the concept of cooperation and mutual support that every student gives and
receives in a safe classroom community where everyone is appreciated. The inclusion of Social
Emotional Learning (Koch, pg. 115) as one of the teaching philosophies that I am going to use in
the classroom will establish trust and understanding in the classroom and help students build

good decision-making skills and self-esteem which are going to be crucial in the learning process
along with emotional control and concerns for others. Students will academically achieve more if
their learning environment supports healthy relationships and teaches them how to handle
challenges. As a teacher, I need to make sure that everybodys emotional needs are met to ensure
successful learning outcomes. I will embrace Progressivism as another teaching philosophy.
Progressivism means the integration of study with real-life experiences through active learning,
problem solving, and experimentation (Koch, pg. 58). I truly believe it to be a powerful
approach to motivate students in the school learning environment; the learning material will
make much more sense if students are able to relate to life experiences from their surroundings.
As a future language teacher, I will definitely have plenty of teaching material that can be related
to real life scenarios. The use of project-based learning and problem-based learning for hands-on
work will encourage group and individual work that can consequently improve relationships
among students while giving students the understanding of the strong connection between school
learning and real life experiences. Differentiated Instruction, another teaching philosophy that I
am thinking of using, will be based on the understanding that students come to school with
different backgrounds that go from learning needs, abilities, languages and ethnic differences,
but also cultural and socioeconomic ones. Differentiated Instruction means to engage learners
through multiple approaches, tasks, and activities (Koch, pg. 115), because students cannot be
taught the same way, and everyone deserves equal opportunity to succeed based on their learning
styles, experiences and life events. I firmly believe that the learning experience cannot stop in the
classroom, but must continue within the family. Therefore I am going to establish positive and
constant relations with parents to foster family support for the students learning process. At the
same time, support from colleagues and other professional from the school environment is
necessary to have a complete picture of every student; in fact, their involvement will benefit the
student, academically and personally.
The classroom environment should be welcoming and organized to facilitate movement
around students desks. Groups of four will be created in order to enable cooperation among
them but the seats are not going to be assigned permanently. Every so often, students will be
rearranged to create new groups. Students will be encouraged to talk and share points of view
with each other while working together in groups as well as individually. A silent class does not
necessarily mean a well behaved class, but it could be an indication of noninvolved students. The

walls will be covered with interesting posters, geographic maps of the place where the language
learned comes from and pictures that capture students imagination representing the country and
the language. Bookshelves loaded with books for different grade levels are also going to be
available beside the use of media like You Tube videos and podcasts to enhance the learning
experiences. Therefore a good sound system and a big screen will be available in the classroom.
The atmosphere in the room will be inviting and challenging, stimulating and comfortable,
structured but open to changes to work with students interests. In one word a fun class, where
learning happens as a result of pure engagement of the entire class.
Reference
Koch, Janice (2012) Teach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning