Statement of Beliefs about Teaching and Learning for PROF 190

Due Date: ongoing, with a version in your Professional Portfolio at your Exit Conference

Your task is to develop a statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning that will guide you in your B. Ed year and beyond. Your thinking will evolve, always centring on what you care most about as a teacher and learner. You will want to have a Statement of Beliefs (with perhaps a different title) as part of the application package you will be preparing for your job search. Your ideas, and your written statement, will change as you deepen your understandings about teaching and learning. Education Career Services will provide further guidance for you as you work through this important task of thinking about and expressing your ideas. Here are some categories to help you focus on what you might include in your statement.

  

Areas of Focus

• Student — In what ways are your students central to your thinking?
• Teacher — In what ways do you want to be an example for your students?
• Subject — What is it about your favourite subject that you want your students to learn? Why?
• Learning — To what extent are you focussed on the processes of learning, and cultivating a love of learning?
• Community — What emphasis do you place on learning in community, on cooperating and collaborating?
• Society — In what ways are you concerned with students understanding their society and in becoming good citizens?
• Environment — In what ways do you want to focus on having your students think and act in ways that reflect understanding and respect for the environmental consequences of what they do?

An Evolving Statement

The idea behind this activity is to begin to articulate a philosophy of teaching and learning based on an ethic of caring (Noddings, 1992). As the year unfolds, recognize that in any particular teaching situation, the central focus of your belief statement may change.

Revisit your belief statement at various times during your B.Ed./Dip.Ed. year. Here are some purposes for this kind of thinking:

• to enhance your curriculum planning
• to enhance your teaching practice;
• to guide your action research project;
• to guide the development and implementation of your Professional Development Plan
• to provide you with help in creating materials for job interviews.

 

Assessment

Candidates should include this Statement in their Professional Portfolios and are encouraged to share their thinking with Associate Teachers and peers.