Charbel A.

My teaching philosophy revolves around aiding my students in growing and thriving in the field of science. I aim to develop learners’ understanding starting from the core of inquiry and branching out to critical thinking and inquiring about certain phenomena, conducting experiments as a means to answer those questions, and providing explanations based on evidence. My teaching philosophy further stretches to rooting the seed of enthusiasm in learning the subject as it is an additional intrinsic motivation to mastering science.

ask the right questions before the lesson, dress to impress but not to intimidate and be punctual and on time, Introduce yourself and find out what your students' aims are, explain how sessions will work, bring resources and assess their current level of study, make the student feel confident teach them something new leave some home learning build a rapport with the student's parents book in your next session.

In helping a student become an independent learner is motivation and rich interpersonal skills between the students and I is crucial. By creating a passionate atmosphere for learning, students will be more susceptible to having a powerful and positive connection to learning. It is then that students could strengthen their meta-cognitive skills and self-learn through the most suitable learning modalities. I would further introduce lessons by fusing different strategies such as visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and kinesthetic such as learning self-discipline by keeping journals with photographs.

I would help a student stay motivated by breaking the chains of intangible systematic lessons, answers, and questions and replace skills to be learned through more tangible means such as experimentation, research, self-assessment, and peer assessment. Students actively engaging in their learning process makes them feel responsible, mature, and would allow them to relate more to the subject.

My policy is “No student left behind” regardless of the student’s level of difficulty in understanding a skill or concept. I strongly believe there’s a key to each solution, in this case, to each learning difficulty. I would work with a student one-on-one in an attempt to determine where weaknesses lie. However, if the student continues to struggle, I would give various forms of diagnostic tests and modify lesson plans in attempts to understand their learning style, thus ensuring no student, not mine would slip through the cracks!

Personally, I am Biology and Physics teacher. Both subjects demand reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. In order to ensure these skills are mastered in my classes. I would coordinate with the Special Needs department, who in return may coordinate with delegated paraprofessionals. I would then work parallel with specialists to create the most effective learning environment.

Set high expectations to inspire, motivate and challenge pupils (i.e. work off the assumption that in every one of your classes is the next Isaac Newton, the next William Shakespeare, and the next Marie Curie). Promote good outcomes by all pupils (figure out what individuals are capable of and work with them to get to that point, there is no one magic milestone that everyone hits at once but if you’ve got one student who’s currently on track for an A and another who’s currently on track for a C, figuring out how to help them work towards an A* and a B respectively is key). Demonstrate good subject knowledge (how can you expect the kids to excel in your subject if you’re not familiar with ever letter of what you’re going to be teaching? This can be difficult for those teaching core subjects or several subjects at once but it has a massive impact on students contextual understanding, they need to see you not just as a teacher but as an expert in your field) Plan and teach well-structured lessons (Get ahead with your planning every chance you get, even if it means working weekends and holidays, I cannot stress this enough. If you’re expected to plan a scheme of work/unit from scratch or make major adaptations to someone else’s then the second you know what text/topic you’re going to be teaching, start planning. Not all lessons have to follow the Starter/Main/Plenary model but it’s probably the simplest and most effective) Adapt teaching to the strengths and limitations of all pupils (Effective differentiation and inclusive practice is what separates great teachers from good or average ones. This doesn’t just mean looking at your school’s SEN register and figuring out who has what learning need or disability and following general guidance, it means knowing the individual learners, those who speak english as a second language or those who are on free-school meals may need particular attention and don’t forget to include challenge tasks for more able students) Make accurate and productive use of assessment (Since schools are obsessed with data-capture, formative assessment and standardised testing it stands to reason that there is would be a wealth of information on the learning progress of every student, find it, figure out what it tells you about that student and if you feel that there is a piece of the puzzle missing devise your own informal assessments to test things like creativity or speaking and listening skills) Manage behaviour effectively (The simple truth of the matter is that if you can’t control the class, you can’t teach, take it from someone who’s stood in front of an unruly or disruptive group and found that with the best will in the world and plenty of interesting content and good subject knowledge I just couldn’t get them to pay attention. Voice-projection, the right body-language and effective use of rewards and sanctions are key here, teachers who are overly punitive are regarded with suspicion while teachers who are too nice tend to get walked all over by certain students) Fulfil your wider obligations to the community of the school. Parental involvement is also key, the teacher who phones home or emails home for both the best and worst performing on a regular basis to discuss strategies with parents ends up being far more effective in their role than the teacher who has no idea what’s going on in their students home-lives)

There is no doubt that most classes, including mine, will consist of a student disengaged with a subject he/she is struggling with. This scenario reminds me of the parable of the boy who strolls down the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. Without this boy’s empathetic move, the starfish would surely die defending his actions with the reply that what he is doing makes a difference. Even if don’t succeed in reaching every one of my learners, I still try by doing the following: mold the lessons to fit the interests of students, relocate them to the front of the class, ask their help with teaching or creating experiments in the lab, give them one-on-one lessons, and remain positive in front of the student as long as they are trying.

A student’s understanding of the material would definitely encompass formative assessments designed to ensure understanding and provide learners with constructive criticism and feedback. Yet, due to the large amounts of material and skills required from students, the use of formative assessments solely will not effectively and reliably assess student understanding. Students are assessed based on experiments conducted and the level of reasoning and thinking skills addressed. The assessment techniques are open-ended reflections where students write what they have learned about a topic in the form of journal entries, articles, or reports. Model-making is used to assess a student’s visual ability to represent a simplified aspect of the world that enables them to think about it in new ways.

It is a good idea to begin tuition at an easier level than the student suggested in your earlier communications. You can test whether to move ahead more quickly by challenging them early in the process. This will let them settle into private tuition but swiftly discover their real ability level. It will also allow you to ensure that they make progress during their first sessions. If you find that a student struggles with a lot of the content of a first lesson, they could quickly become disheartened and feel tutoring isn’t for them. Be sure to have a couple of ‘easy wins’ for a student so that you are able to allow them to impress you with their knowledge. You can revert to these short tasks at times where you feel the student has had to show resilience for a, particularly long time during the session.

I would adapt my student’s needs towards focused instruction where students learn skills in a clear and coherent manner. A pivotal part of focused instruction includes teacher modeling where a student observes the skills required of the task before being asked to engage independently. Through modeling, I provide a vivid setting of how I solve a problem and complete the task, providing an opportunity to demonstrate expert thinking. The most simplistic example of this situation is while reading a text and stumbling across the word “carnivore”, I would relate it to the Spanish word Carne, and say this tactic would remind me that carnivores are meat-eaters. I would further use guided instructions, strategically using questions, prompts, and cues to ease student thinking. This is an opportunity for students to engage in thinking without direct prompting, but instead, allow them to scaffold ideas before completing tasks.