Module 2 Journal Entry
“What is your philosophy of education? How do you apply this in your classroom teaching?” I remember these questions as topics of essay writing or even interviews when applying for a teaching job more than a decade ago. Back then, having fresh knowledge from the licensure exam review, I confidently wrote or said ‘constructivism’ and that the kind of classroom that I would create was a learner-centered one, with the use of various hands-on science activities. Although admittedly, during my first years of teaching, perhaps due to my limited experience or superficial learning or for its practicality for my own sake, what I adopted in my classroom was the traditional, teacher-centered teaching method. This does not align with the philosophy I boasted about.
Being able to study once more the theories and practices in education gives me the opportunity to assess whether my teaching practice has already evolved from traditional to a more progressive one.
I had been teaching for more than 10 years already and I realized that the theory that mostly dominates the philosophy of most teachers based on my perception of how they teach is Social Cognitive Theory. Giving lectures, demonstrations, tutoring, peer learning that fall under observational learning and modelling are all strategies under Social Cognitive Theory. The continuous interactions between behavior, personal factors and environment are also continuously taking place in the four corners of the classroom and even beyond. As teachers, the structure of our lessons is patterned to the processes of modelling that include attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. We constantly reassure our learners that they can grasp our lessons easily as long as they are attentive and diligent, little do we know that we do it to boost self-efficacy. We set our goals at the start of each lesson and check in the end if they were accomplished which is actually self-regulation being applied. Needless to say, Social Cognitive Theory is an effective theory that teachers, including myself, can adopt.
It amazes me every time I learn about an educational theory and find out that the principles I follow fall under that certain learning theory. Learning about Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories make me realize that The way school and classroom scenarios work are all guided by the assertions of their learning theories. I agree that there is a sequence or order in the learning of an individual or what is called cognitive development. Although each has his or her own pacing, everyone experiences a change from simple to complex levels of cognition. An individual can self-regulate and through the help of teachers and other MKOs, that individual can increase his/her zone of proximal development. All these point to the principle of constructivism that learners create their own learning situated in different contexts or experiences.
Metacognition was another learning theory that I was familiar about. I’ve encountered this topic when I was about to graduate from college, we had to attend a seminar which discusses the benefits of metacognition in learning. I knew then that it was about thinking about thinking but I did not comprehend how it could be used in classroom teaching. Now that I understood it more clearly, I realized I have been practicing it all along. I consider myself a deep thinker and I think it allowed me to process situations more and assess how I could have done better. Metacognition helps me a lot in studying a certain material because I have a tendency to procrastinate and thus fail to plan how to study and thus end up not finishing anything at all. Normally, that would have led me to thinking I don’t have the capacity and drive to finish another degree because I failed many times, but metacognition helped me understand that despite obstacles, I could be able to accomplish difficult tasks as long as I devote time in planning and strategizing. It helps me overcome my limitations as a learner by managing my activities and developing a strategic plan to become more competent and efficient. And I think this would be a very good strategy that I could make my students use to also guide and help them in their studies.
The theories that struck me the most are the motivational theories. Usually I spend most time planning about how to make my lesson interesting and which strategy would be best to use, but I fail to plan about how to motivate my students, when in fact, it is an integral part of the teaching-learning process, if not the most. I believe all the motivational theories generally explain factors that help increase students’ motivation but I could relate more with the attribution theory. It is important to investigate and learn what students attribute their success or failure to because doing so would give the teacher an idea on how to help the student. But most importantly, it is best for students to achieve intrinsic motivation because this is long lasting and allow students to become independent or autonomous in their learning.
As my experience and confidence in teaching grew, I tried experimenting on different strategies. I tried aligning my practices to the philosophy I believe in. I even came to a point that I already hate lecturing in my class. Not only is it effective but I also find joy when I see my students investigating and figuring out solutions to problems. Through this self-assessment, I do believe that the theory and philosophy that I practice now in my teaching is constructivism. Whenever I plan my lessons, I create learning strategies to allow students create their own learnings and understand the concepts more deeply. I only have to allot enough time for learning to take place and create allowances for individual differences.
Being a science coordinator, what I now find challenging is how to make other teachers follow this principle. I find it my goal to teach the new breed of educators and somehow persuade the more experienced ones to use constructivism as their guide in their teaching practice.
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