David Schiller

February 11, 2016

SCG-451
Doing Practitioner Research in Education & Research Methods and Disciplinary Inquiry
De Paul University
Dr. Ann Frkovich

Educational Philosophy
Have you ever heard the sound of nails scraping against the side of a chalkboard? The very thought of it
makes most people clasp at their ears and squeeze their eyes shut in a vain attempt to block out the dissonant
and jarring screeeeeeeeeeeetch! Then you shake your head in a futile attempt, hoping that the echos of that
horrific sound dissipate forever from your mind. Well, thats how I felt a few days ago when I overheard some
students talking about science. I hate science! Yeah. Science is boooooring. When am I ever going to use
that stuff? Yeah, bro. The struggle is real. I felt like I had just been slammed by a roundhouse kick to the
face. Hate science??!! Are we the same species?! It is difficult for me to imagine such blasphemy. Why,
only a few weeks ago, researchers discovered direct evidence of gravitational waves, predicted by Albert
Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity, bringing us ever closer to a Unified Field Theory! Science is
unlocking the secrets of the creation of the universe! How is that not exciting????
Science is a wonderful and beautiful thing. Yes, science allows humanity to build technology that gives
us smart phones, indoor-plumbing, and Netflix, but it is so much more. I think of science as an elegant
symphony or artistic masterpiece. Science is filled with worlds of complexity within larger worlds of infinite
intricacy. There is a whole ecosystem that lives within a drop of river water and yet that world is only a small
fragment of this planet, which is itself, only a minute piece of our entire cosmos. Plants, through the use of
Chlorophyll and photosynthesis, are able to harness the light energy of the sun and the invisible carbon dioxide
gas around us to build trees hundreds of feet tall that dwarf us. That is the Magic of science and it is all
around us. So how come students can still say science is not interesting? How does a teacher engage students?
I am a firm believer that an engaging teacher with lessons that are interactive, inquiry-based, and made
relevant to students lives can make any subject interesting. Conversely, even the most interesting subject, like
science, can become tedious and monotonous as parodied by Ben Stein in Ferris Buellers Day Off if it is taught
as simple facts.
There are several ways to engage students in learning. No two students are exactly the same. We all
learn slightly differently, associate concepts to different memories, and have different talents and abilities.
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Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist at Harvard University explains this idea. He believes that
people are unique and have multiple types of intelligences, not solely mathematical or verbal. Individuals can
excel at a variety of tasks. Some people have a talent for interpersonal relationships, others have visual-spatial
coordination, music, art, etc. My job as a teacher is to adapt lessons for different students, whether those
students are visual, auditory, or tactile learners. Students can also be individuals with a variety of disabilities,
English language learners, gifted learners, or just students that need someone to care about them. By adapting
my lesson plans to each student, I can help each student maximize his or her potential and stay interested in
what he or she is learning. A great teacher can create lesson plans that engage students in a variety of forms so
that all students will be able to learn effectively.
Another method of engaging students is by making the lesson relevant to the students. John Dewey, an
early educational theorist encouraged lessons to be relevant to a students prior knowledge. When learning is
relevant to a student, he or she becomes more engaged and retains more information. When I was a high school
student, my biology teacher often brought in or assigned the students to bring in an article about scientific
discoveries in current events. This helped to make science a topic of discussion and one relevant to my own
life.
In a biology classroom, I intend to engage students by asking them what they are curious about, creating
student-centered inquiry experiments, and showing the application of ideas that are relatable, visual, hands-on,
and engage all the senses. By creating lessons that force students to take the driver-seat in their own learning,
they learn to exercise their own scientific inquiry and curiosity and utilize the scientific process to discover on
their own how the world functions and to predict its actions. These activities can then be a springboard to
asking students deeper questions which forces them to learn more in order to answer their own curiosity.
Science education is all about exploring the unknown, questioning, and appreciating the beauty of the
world that science has to offer. I hope to become a biology and science teacher so that each day I can be
immersed in the beautiful symphony and masterpieces of science and help inculcate and nurture in my students
this same rabid, insatiable inquisitiveness in the surrounding world and universe. In order to do this, I must
make science engaging and applicable to each student. I have to makes biology and science come alive. If I
can make students say Awesome! or Cool! at least once a day, I can really make a difference.

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