{"id":74,"date":"2012-08-13T01:25:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T06:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/?p=74"},"modified":"2017-08-10T12:27:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T17:27:04","slug":"statement-of-teaching-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/2012\/08\/13\/statement-of-teaching-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"My Teaching Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Paulo Freyre, one of the most influential Latin American thinkers, developed a teaching philosophy based on social justice and critical thinking. According to Freyre, \u201cOnly authoritative educators deny solidarity between the act of educating and the one of being educated by a student.\u201d Teaching makes us part of a larger community in which every professor shares a space for learning with his\/hers students and colleagues. Therefore&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">It is important to know who the students are and to take time to learn about their experiences with the Spanish language and culture. This will guide professors into tailoring his\/her class to fit the students&#8217; needs. She\/he will be constantly learning from students, and improving lesson plans by incorporating their feedback.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">It is crucial to understand the cultural diversity of students. In the case of Spanish for Heritage Speakers class, students\u2019 linguistic and cultural backgrounds and learning experiences tend to vary more than in Spanish as a second language course. So, learning about their personal history is vital, and it allows faculty to customize classes to students&#8217; specific needs and cultural references. The methodology, content and goals that guide teaching and the resources employed in the classroom have always being selected based on a constant dialogue with students at the beginning, during, and at the end of each course. Thus, student evaluations are an indispensable component of any instructor&#8217;s professional growth.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Activities and assignments should foster critical thinking, strive for cultural relevance, and engage students in stimulating discussions. Incorporating films, documentaries, You Tube videos, comics, and other materials from popular culture helps faculty achieve these goals.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Aim to foster a classroom environment of collaborative work and equality, where students share ideas and help each other. This way, students have an active role in their learning\u00a0process and volunteer to participate more in class, whether in group work, presentations or open discussions. Faculty&#8217;s responsibility is to facilitate their learning, and this often means breaking away from a teacher-centered classroom. In addition, motivating students to search for learning venues outside our class encourages them to share their knowledge with other people, building bridges between their college experience and their community. The use of online resources such as blogs, discussion forums, and wikis helps to foment a more global approach to learning.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">A collaborative and democratic philosophy towards teaching Latino\/a\/x Studies must extend to the community, and push the professor to encourage students attendance to cultural activities related to the topics and cultures discussed in class. All students must attend events offered in the community.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">This teaching philosophy has been significantly shaped by cooperative work with other instructors that collaborated to create teaching materials, exchanged ideas on lesson plans, organized reading groups on teaching methodology, and prepared presentations. Educators can\u00a0learn tremendously about students\u2019 interests in Latin American and Latino\/x\/a cultures by working closely with his\/her colleagues, and cultural organizations in their institution and community.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Beyond the irreplaceable first-hand learning experience that our students give back to their faculty, many of the teaching practices listed above were enhanced through: <strong>a)<\/strong><strong>\u00a0involvement with the <a href=\"http:\/\/citl.illinois.edu\/about-citl\/about-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Illinois\u2019 Center for Teaching Excellence<\/a><\/strong> (CTE) as a doctoral student, where a Teaching Scholar Certificate and a Graduate Teacher Certificate were completed. <strong>b)<\/strong> (and more recently) several <strong>workshops, presentations, and reading groups organized by fellow colleagues at St<\/strong>. <strong>Olaf College.<\/strong> Attendance to various workshops offered by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mctlc.org\/Organizational_Representatives\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MCTLC (Minnesota Council of the Teaching of Languages and Cultures)<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/citl.illinois.edu\/about-citl\/about-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CTE <\/a>and by the <a href=\"https:\/\/apcentral.collegeboard.org\/courses\/ap-spanish-language-and-culture\/exam?course=ap-spanish-language-and-culture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">C<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/apcentral.collegeboard.org\/courses\/ap-spanish-language-and-culture\/exam?course=ap-spanish-language-and-culture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ollege Board\u2019s Advance Placement Exam<\/a>\u00a0complement an academic preparation on Latinx\/o\/a Studies and Latin American Studies.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Paulo Freyre, one of the most influential Latin American thinkers, developed a teaching philosophy based on social justice and critical thinking. According to Freyre, \u201cOnly authoritative educators deny solidarity between the act of educating and the one of being <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/2012\/08\/13\/statement-of-teaching-philosophy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  My Teaching Philosophy<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized-links-span-231-intermediate-spanish-i-span-232-intermediate-spanish-ii-span-250-gateway-to-the-spanish-speaking-world-span-272-cultural-heritage-of-latin-america-span-273-cultural-herita"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/medinavi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}