Classroom Philosophy in Action

My classroom will be organized with moveable desks so that presentations, individual work, small group work, and discussions in a circle were all possible. Most of what my students do will be either individual or group tasks they do at their own pace. Whole class discussion and presentation of material will start or wrap up a particular topic.
I would like students to have intrinsic motivation. That is the only motivation worth having I believe. I honestly wouldn’t know how to motivate a student extrinsically in high school. I don’t think there is anything I can offer a student that will help them more in life than how to discover knowledge on his or her own. As a teacher I think that if I gain the student’s trust then I get his respect. Maybe then I can model desirable qualities and guide a student on his journey to achievement.
Students will inevitably misbehave when that happens a teacher should be prepared. Any sort of minor infraction will warrant a reminder of the rules the class has made for themselves. If moving students to different desks will help, I will do that. Any sort of dress code, fighting, or tardiness I will refer to the school policy for disciplinary action. For perpetual or reoccurring disturbance in my class I will have the student write up a plan of action with the student, his or her parents, and I signing it so the expectations are clear for everyone.
There are three kinds of assessment pre assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. I plan on using all three in every unit. They each have a specific and very important purpose. I want to know what previous knowledge my students possess so I can tie the new knowledge with the old knowledge and help them build connections. This is also important to create a common experience. Not all students in the class will have taken all the same classes. Formative assessment is any form of feed back to the students so they know how they are doing. Summative is the end product to demonstrate what the student knows and this of course is the goal of assessment in the first place.
As with any teacher the ultimate goal is to offer my students a physically and emotionally safe environment where students feel free to express their ideas, form or change opinions, and discuss controversial topics. That said I want the climate of my classroom to be fun and not too serious. I hope my students feel pushed but not pressured to succeed.
I know in my first few years I will be student focused. This is where my role as a teacher is the facilitator of learning. I will choose whether students work cooperatively or independently, what assignments they will do, and offer them the information to learn. Eventually once I get more comfortable with the classroom management part of teaching and keeping students on task I want to switch to learner focused. In that type of teaching the students have more control over what they learn about. They can choose topics of interest, how assignments are to be completed and when, and keep track of their own progress. The responsibility of their learning is completely on them where as in the student centered classroom the teacher and student share responsibility.
Technology is such an important part of educating students for the future. I want to use technology as much as possible. I think anything that can be done in the classroom can be done also on the computer. Depending on the resources available to me it will take me some time figuring out how to incorporate it into everything. I know my students will know of different programs they like personally and if I can figure out a way to use them in class I will try to. Technology will change, that is guaranteed, this means I have to be willing to change with it. This is actually what is exciting about education for me, I love change. I can’t wait until someone makes what I already know how to do better.
In my history methods class we had to decide what kind of teacher we were. A few examples were coach, performer, evangelist, and some that I can’t remember. I decided that I was an evangelist; I want to convert my students to be independent thinkers. I think the relationship between student and teacher will be different for me depending on the grade I end up teaching. If I teach 6th grade I will have equal student and teacher control. I have to keep in mind that these students are still kids and they need the guidance I should provide. However on the opposite end of the spectrum if I taught seniors I would give them an acceptable level of autonomy and choice. I do not feel like I need to micromanage a classroom in order to be in control of the class.