I believe that the purpose of education is to help students develop to their full potential and prepare them for the world that awaits them when they leave high school.  This involves preparing them not only for their future careers, but for navigating all the challenges that life throws at them.  Learning is an active process where students integrate their existing knowledge with new knowledge they gain through interactions with their environment and other people, including their teachers and peers.  Teachers play a vital role in the student’s education by acting as guides, mentors, and role models that help students gain understanding and skills that they will use throughout their lives.  As a teacher, I do not want to simple dispense facts that my students passively memorize.  I want to help students lay a foundation of knowledge upon which they can build true understanding and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

 

When I teach, I plan to set the bar high for all of my students.  When we lower standards for our students in an attempt to accommodate perceived abilities, we are doing those students a disservice.  We are telling them that this is all that you are capable of achieving.  Most people rarely try to exceed what is expected of them and may not even realize that it is possible to achieve more if the standards are set too low.  I want to enable all students to learn at a high level in order to give them the opportunity to rise to the occasion and maximize their potential. I plan to communicate high expectations to my students through both actions and words.  Throughout the year, I will share with my students that I believe in the ability of each one of them to learn and be successful.  I will also let them know that I expect them to come to class every day prepared to work, to always bring their materials, complete their homework, etc.  In return, I will let them know that I will come to the classroom every day prepared to work and provide them with the tools they need to be successful.  For the first assignments of the year, I will provide feedback to my students and allow them to correct their assignments and turn them back in for a grade. This achieves several purposes. It allows me to set expectations early in the year for the quality of work I want to see.  It also provides the students an opportunity to correct their work and achieve success early in the year.  Throughout the year, I will provide meaningful feedback to students that makes it clear when they have met the mark and provides them with enough detail to understand what they need to do when they do not meet the mark. 

 

In order to teach our students, we must first know our students.  As an effective guide, mentor, role model and coach, I want to understand who my students are from an academic and a personal perspective.  Understanding my students’ academic abilities and prior knowledge will allow me to create lessons that are differentiated to meet their academic needs and that challenge every student from the learning disabled to the highly gifted.  Knowing students on a personal level, including their academic interests, hobbies, aspirations, and cultural backgrounds, helps me create lessons that are relevant to their lives. By creating lessons that are both challenging and relevant to my students, I hope to both push them and inspire them to learn. To get to know my students, I will ask them to fill out a questionnaire at the beginning of the semester about their interests, aspirations, what they want to get out of my class, and what they believe to be their academic strengths and weaknesses.  Throughout the semester, I will work to build a rapport with my students that demonstrates my caring for their success and establishes a sense of trust.  However, this communication will not be a one way street.  As a role model and mentor, I will share with my students how I developed my passion for biology, what influenced my academic success and career choices, what I learned from my previous jobs, and why I switched careers to teach.  Often, adults fail to share these types of life experiences with the younger generation.  This in unfortunate, because I think there is much that young adults can learn from the older generation’s decision making processes, successes and failures.

 

As a teacher, I want to instill in my students a curiosity for how the world works.  Young children innately have this curiosity as they strive to make sense of the world around them and are constantly exposed to new experiences.  However, for many children as they get older, this curiosity subsides or even dies.  Curiosity is important not only to a student’s academic success but also to their success in life.  It is our curiosity that keeps us learning, even after we have left the classroom.  Great innovations and scientific discoveries are not made by people that lack curiosity. To help my students develop their curiosity, they need a safe environment where they are encouraged to ask questions and where those questions are answered.  One way I will foster curiosity in my students is by helping them make connections between what they are learning and the real world.  Helping students create this connections makes learning more meaningful.  One way I would like to help students connect what we are learning to the real world is by having students bring in scientific news stories from the popular media to discuss in class.  We can relate these stories to what we have learned in class, discuss what impacts these studies have on their lives, and increase our scientific literacy in the process.  Another way that I would nurture curiosity in my students is through hands-on learning.  Hands-on learning is a natural fit for the science classroom.  The ability to manipulate objects, conduct experiments and play the role of the scientist will take learning beyond lectures and allow students to take an active role in their own learning.  Exposing students to new experiences that involve active participation and that utilize all of their senses is akin to the way young children who have boundless curiosity explore the world. 

 

One of the critical things that I want my students to understand is the scientific process.  Twenty years after they have completed high school, they may not remember anything about the Kreb’s Cycle, but if they can remember and apply the scientific method they will have been well served.  The process of asking questions, conducting research, developing a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis and developing conclusions has applications far beyond conducting scientific research.  On some level, it is a valid problem solving strategy for tackling many of life’s challenges.  In order for students to understand the scientific method, they have to use it on a regular basis.  This may include going through the entire process of developing a hypothesis and designing and conducting experiments.  It could also entail identifying the hypothesis for an experiment we are conducting or the limitations of the data available to support a scientific study that was reported in the news.  The emphasis will be on them doing science and thinking like scientists. By asking questions, exploring the limitations of data, and drawing conclusions students gain critical problem solving skills.

 

The number of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs are expected to continue to grow at a fast pace in the near future.  While my goal is not to have every one of my students pursue a STEM career, I do want them to be aware of the opportunities and be well prepared if they decide to go that route.  The world is evolving rapidly and science and technology play a large role in this evolution.  As new discoveries are made, there is the potential for enormous good, but there is also the potential for great harm.  I do not want my students to fear scientific progress, but I do want them to understand both the benefits and the risks.  It is only when we consider both that we can make informed and sound decisions.  My hope as a teacher is that I can lay the groundwork that will help students be prepared for their futures.  By instilling in them a foundation of knowledge, combined with curiosity and critical thinking skills students should have the skills they need to meet the challenges of tomorrow.