Teachers are facilitators of knowledge creation as well as co-collaborators of knowledge. My teaching is targeted toward providing my students with the ability to develop their own critical thinking, as well as effective decision-making and communication skills. I aim to create a community of learners by fostering opportunities for students to develop new relationships that honor and celebrate multiple perspectives and diverse life experiences. I integrate problem-based learning and success-based learning approaches to teaching and make the content relevant and applicable to diverse students’ lives and work environments. It is important to create scaffolding to provide opportunities for students to systematically link theory and practice. This is a synergistic activity that requires students to be active learners and co-creators of content and activities.
In teaching, I work toward an inclusive and respectful relationship with my students and colleagues, always mindful and aware of the global community. I believe that students can and will make appropriate decisions if given the opportunity and guidance, and that our differences can have a positive impact on our academic, professional, and personal development. Academic and professional relationships with diverse colleagues inside and outside of the department enhance my professional development and my students’ learning experience. I fully embrace my responsibility to ensure that all of my students succeed in their own way.
Because teaching and learning are deeply contextual acts, the onus is on me to look for ways to meet the needs of students while stimulating them to challenge their own preconceived notions as well as being stimulated by them to question my own beliefs. Determining students’ needs and the applicable interventions requires a keen sense of judgment, a wealth of experience, and an array of techniques. I am grateful for the many opportunities I have to learn from other teachers/colleagues and students, while keeping up with research on ways to transform the learning environment in my content area. My exploration of innovations in teaching has led me to develop unique courses (also in a full online format). In these courses, students interact with peers, together solving complex educational problems based on access to empirical research, theoretical readings, and authentic vignettes of school leaders’ problems and successes, all in interactive environments that model the experience of a professional learning community.