TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Chuck Ziehr, Northeastern State University
General Teaching Philosophy
1. Education is the ability to rapidly re-learn familiar things and to master new things. The main goal is to teach "how to learn" rather than to teach facts or even concepts. Facts will likely become outdated; concepts will be forgotten in many cases or may be superceded by new research. New information will be required in an ever-changing world.2. The process of critical thinking is paramount. Students need to acquire the ability to confront, evaluate, assimilate, and synthesize new information and then to apply that information critically, practically, and effectively to decision-making and problem-solving. The development of critical thinking requires "active learning" and hands-on analysis.
3. All students have tremendous, God-given potential and can achieve much of that potential if individually motivated, treated with respect and fairness, and expected to rise toward that potential. Each student needs to be viewed as an individual with great worth and potential. We obtain the best results in education by expecting the best from each student.
4. To understand today's material a student must press ahead into tomorrow's material. Initial exposure to new facts, concepts, or decision-making strategies is often, at best, only a partially enlightening experience. Planned repetition of factual information, review of concepts, use of techniques, and practice in problem-solving are needed in order to facilitate effective learning.
5. Learning is often best achieved in a collaborative effort. There needs to be clear and comfortable channels of communication between the student and the instructor and between the student and other students. There needs to be the attitude of "we're all in this together." A plurality of perspectives, diverse experiences, and varied expertise can collectively be brought to bear on the learning endeavor; thereby almost always making that endeavor richer and more successful.
6. Enthusiasm is contagious. A teacher must be enthusiastic not only about teaching but about learning and must convey that excitement to her/his students. Enthusiasm for learning is, of course, demonstrated by one's demeanor in the the classroom, but also by exploration and application of new developments in the discipline, by explicit application of course content to current events, and by appropriate use of learning styles research, active learning techniques, and instructional technology.
Geography Teaching Philosophy
1. The primary benefit from studying geography (the science of location) is attainment of a "spatial perspective" on the world. Everything happens somewhere for reasons and with consequences. Most events impact other events. Students can better understand local, national, international, and environmental situations by learning to evaluate the spatial relationships that contribute to those situations.2. There is predictable order to most spatial distributions. A major goal in geography is to identify and understand processes or forces that produce that order. Events and features occur how and where they do for reasons. It is as if human and natural systems were responding to "unwritten rules." A geographer seeks to discover those "rules." For example, within a given region cities of a given population are about the same distance from other cities of approximately the same size; there are market, political, and transportation processes that are primarily responsible for this observable pattern. One can function more effectively within human and environmental systems if one is aware of and understands these processes.
3. Geography provides its students a mental framework or spatial filing system. An understanding of world locations and the functions of maps provides a student with a frame of reference for the myriad of events that shape our lives. Just as language and history give order to thinking and connections among events so geography adds the critical element of space or location as an organizing concept.
Originally created by Chuck Ziehr (8/16/96); Last revised August 19, 2001; CTZ