Daniel James Lair
Teaching Philosophy Statement
I believe that learning is far more about process than it is about content. I do not expect my students to walk away from a course with complete mastery of the material; rather, I would hope that they leave with both a practical understanding of how they can use the material that we have worked through in the course to improve their lives and a greater facility for and appreciation of critical thinking that helps them approach the world in new, challenging ways. I feel that I have successfully helped a student not only when she leaves my course with the ability to apply new skills or knowledge, but leaves also with her views of the world changed and challenged. All too often, I see students enter my classes with expectations of drawing neat boxes around concepts, aiming for complete understanding of clear, definite ideas. By the time that they leave, however, I hope that I have helped them at least begin to see the beauty of blurred boundaries, the challenge of complexity.
To that end I view myself playing the roles of, alternately, guide and coach. I try to steer clear from the traditional view of teacher-as-authority, and instead develop a friendly, relaxing, open learning environment where students feel safe and free to interact with one another, with me, and to try out new ideas. Although I am certainly willing to lecture when necessary, usually to provide a brief background in concepts with which my students might not be familiar, I am much more comfortable engaging my students in discussion. It is in these discussions that I see myself as a guide, attempting to negotiate the tensions between creativity and direction, allowing students to make their own discoveries. I generally try to encourage students to answer one another’s questions, stepping in with my own comments only after the students have exhausted their own discussion, to add to their emerging understanding of a concept, or steer them to a facet that they may have neglected. Occasionally, however, I will intervene as discussion stray to far, or begin to include understandings of concepts that are simply incorrect or inaccurate.
I try to play the role of coach as well in each of my classes, as I generally incorporate some assignment which requires the students to become the teachers. In public speaking classes, for example, I generally require students to give brief presentations covering chapter material. This activity places the student in charge of their – and their classmates – learning, and gives them the opportunity to speak informally before a graded speech. In other courses, at some point I generally require groups to work together in covering large units of material. The purpose of these assignments is, as mentioned, to turn the education process over to the students themselves; my role in these assignments is to try to help students learn how to take charge of educating themselves and their classmates.
As a relatively new teacher, entering now my third year of teaching, the above objectives are, of course, goals to which I aspire. I am constantly reflecting on my experiences in the classroom to monitor my progress towards achieving these goals. My success, to date, can be monitored both through the methods I use to evaluate my students and the methods – both formal and informal – by which they evaluate me. Through monitoring my students’ progress, I feel that I have done an excellent job of playing the role of coach, but have quite a ways to go to fulfill the role of guide. For example, the quality of speeches in my public speaking classes has increased greatly, which to me is attributable to my self-conscious transformation from a teacher who knows skills that he will impart to his students, to one who serves as a coach, attempting to inspire and assist his student’s success. In terms of functioning as a guide, disappointed at times with the quality of my students’ participation in class discussions, I have begun to change my evaluation techniques from multiple choice exams to more open-ended short answer and essay exams which require them to think through topics more completely. Clearly, there was a disconnect between the way that I taught my students and the way that I evaluated them; cleaning up that discrepancy is a new, ongoing project for me.
In terms of the student evaluations I have received, I tend to receive relatively high quantitative marks, accompanied by comments that I am a knowledgeable, accessible, friendly instructor. Most of these evaluations, however, have not provided me with the rich data I would like to help me reflect on my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. As a result, I have turned towards a process of conducting several informal evaluations throughout the course of the semester to monitor the progress of the course. In these evaluations, students have remarked that my courses have a friendly, open and supportive learning atmosphere, one that the both enjoy and feel challenged in. On the other hand, however, I have also learned that I need to work on my organizational skills: at times I leave too much of the structuring of the course discussions up to them, leaving students to feel a bit confused and overwhelmed. Clearly, I need to work on managing the tensions between being open and being directive.
The teaching philosophy stems, in part, from my experiences with three wonderful professors as an undergraduate. These professors are a large part of my inspiration to pursue and academic career. Each of them, in their own ways, took the time to both challenge me, and befriend me. What I learned from them was that, yes, education is about leaning material in courses, and learning how to apply that material. But it is also about the process of personal growth, about learning to see the world in new, critical ways, which not only make each student a better person, but also hold the hope for improving society at large. It is with this spirit that I engage my students, trying to serve as both coach and guide, to help them not only succeed on a narrow, content-based level, but succeed on a broader, personal level as well.