assessing students needs

personal philosophy of education

5. Philosophy of Schools & Learning
• Epistemology: How do learners come to know truth? What causes learning to occur?
• This is what you KNOW and BELIEVE about schools and learning. It should connect with the previous section and flow smoothly into the next section about instructional practice. Avoid the common error of fragmenting your paper into sections that do not relate to one another. Each section should build on previous ones and support the others.
• Identify key theories from your courses that will impact your teaching. In this section describe the theories and in the next section discuss how you would practice the theory in your instructional methods.
• How will professional knowledge guide your practice?
• Refer to the knowledge base in teacher education that includes educational psychology, philosophy, and learning theory. Don't try to cover everything; just identify two or three key theories you espouse.
• From what specific professional knowledge will you draw in your practice? Whose theories, ideas, etc., are meaningful to you? Be cautious about assigning to yourself a label that you do not fully understand. This could be potentially embarrassing once you discover everything the label entails.

6. Instructional Practice
• This is what you will IMPLEMENT in the classroom.
• This section should flow smoothly from the previous one. In the previous section you should have identified and briefly discussed what theories you plan to implement. In this section you will explain how you will put those theories into instructional practice.
• What pedagogical practices or methods will you tend to use most frequently? Why?
• What instructional strategies will you value and implement?
• What do you hope to accomplish by using these strategies?

7. Teacher-Learner Relationships (Remember that the questions listed in this guide are only to stimulate thought. You are not required to answer them systematically. That might make your paper too rigid.)
• What is the role of the learner?
• What is the role of the teacher?
• How should they relate to each other and why?

8. Diversity
• What diversity factors need to be taken into account by the teacher?
• How do factors of student diversity impact instruction?

9. Your Choice of Headings (optional)
• You may insert optional headings here to address issues that are important to your philosophy of education.
• Here are some ideas you might want to consider:
o My calling
o Classroom management philosophy
o Content/subject-area philosophy
o Assessment philosophy
o Parent role and relationship with teacher
o Current critical issues in education
o Etc.

10. Conclusion
***Please include references****