One more...and then I'll go back to writing about fun stuff! I promise.

Philosophy of Reading, and Goals for the Next School Year

1. Teaching Philosophy
The purpose of college level reading classes is to provide an opportunity for students to derive long-term benefits. I want to encourage my students to grow and develop as critical readers and thinkers. I believe that I will serve my students better if I can model problem solving and comprehension skills, define different problem-solving techniques, and show them the resources they have at their disposal in order to do all this. In my classes, we work on finding, reading, and evaluating new information from a myriad of print and media sources. I teach my students how to recognize their limits, and how to be prepared for change.
My classroom is very student centered. I prefer to involve the students in the learning and thinking process. I admit that this philosophy and approach is often loose knit and not very tightly structured (unlike my rhetoric and composition classes). This presents its issues and challenges. However, as a community of learners, we continue to learn from experience and from our literary sources. I am constantly working on trying to master the dynamics of teaching within my discipline so I can improve my effectiveness as a classroom instructor.

2. Primary Goal
My primary goal is to have a positive impact on the students' future personal and professional life. Part of this involves stimulating students to consider situations from perspectives different from those they normally adopt. To this end I evolve written and creative-skills projects and assignments that provoke students to think out of the box. Some of the topics and themes for these projects are very adult and very graphic, and/or disturbing. I also encourage classroom debates and discussions. I often play the devil’s advocate in these discussions, and take the side of the “losing team,” in order to set things on par again.
This semester, for example, I had students in my College Reading class research a crime story that intrigued them. They then had to write a confessional story from the point-of-view of the criminal. We then discussed how it was important to think like the criminal in order to understand his/her motives and thought processes. We agreed that it was necessary to always remember to put ourselves in other people’s shoes before judging them. This skill would come in handy in our personal and professional lives, because we are constantly interacting with other people whose points-of-view might be different from ours. Assignments and units such as this involve encouraging students to develop life-long habits of self-motivated learning.

3.Secondary Goal
My secondary goal is to prepare my students for success in other college/university classes. I often work one-on-one with my students, and help with assignments from other courses they are taking at the moment.

4.Evaluations/Success Rate
I would say that my often untraditional methods make for a creative learning environment. My students seem to be motivated and willing learners. I have them fill our student evaluation forms twice during the semester, and the results indicate that they are happy with what is being done in the classroom. Many of my students have followed me from RDG 091 to CRE 101. This is a clear indication that they want to be in my classes.

I also have my peers, and my chair, evaluate my instruction. Again, the evaluation results are most satisfactory. I continue to take post-graduate level classes (especially at NAU) in order to hone my teaching skills. I am also constantly on the internet and the library researching lesson plans and thematic units so I can make each semester a unique experience for my students.