I teach undergraduate and graduate students at the National Institute of Physics in U.P. Diliman. In mid-2022, I wrote my first Teaching Philosophy Statement, which I am sharing here. I commit to return to this regularly (at least once a semester) to renew my intentions and update it as needed as my experience and practice evolves and matures.
MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT
As a teacher, I aspire to inculcate in my students a deeper understanding and appreciation of the theories, methods, and joys of Physics, as well as more broadly, of the STEM field. I seek to consistently model and encourage critical thinking, academic scholarship, lifelong learning, and mastery.
I believe that education is more than a transfer of information. While there are students who will be able to absorb the material delivered to them through lectures, many will not have the ability, motivation, and discipline required to do so. I also believe that learning is a social experience— requiring interactions and interactivity, which took a big hit during the pandemic.
To be able to make learning more effective for more students, I will employ a flipped classroom strategy (adapted to the blended learning modality) that (1) moves lectures to a self-paced, asynchronous activity where students are involved in their own learning, and (2) uses synchronous classes to maximize student interactions.
To encourage students to focus on the key underlying concepts as they go through the lecture recordings, there will be an accompanying quiz for each lecture with questions to test their understanding of the concepts. As much as possible, these questions will be designed to expose common difficulties in understanding the material. Such conceptual questions will also be included in the long exams, in addition to regular textbook Physics problems.
The ability of the students to answer these questions correctly, as well as improvements between initial and later assessments, will serve as an indicator of how effective the teaching and learning has been, for both teacher and student. Assessments will be both asynchronous— quizzes after lecture recordings— and synchronous— checking for understanding during class discussions.
Overall, I will take an iterative approach in the development and enhancement of learning resources and assessments, building on what I already have and making steady improvements every semester. Within the next five years, I will aim to have developed a substantial compilation of simple and sustainable educational videos, uploaded to YouTube, and of benefit to the Physics learning community— nationally and globally.
I understand that implementing the plans and achieving all of the goals stated here will take a considerable amount of skill, creativity, time, and grit on my part. There will be many challenges along the way, including competing commitments and pandemic difficulties, among others. To help me stay on track, or get back on track when needed, I will seek encouragement and support from like-minded peers and trusted mentors. I will seek to maintain a practical outlook and set realistic goals given the circumstances of each semester, keeping in mind that every effort expended builds on a lifelong endeavor and vocation.
Acknowledgements: This statement was crafted with guidance from the UP Diliman Office for the Advancement of Teaching through the team behind TEC 1: Fundamentals of University Teaching (2022), my teaching role models and dear friends— J. C. and S. O. — and the pioneering work of Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur.