Teaching Statement

by

 Gail Hunter, EdD (Ed Psych & Tech), M.Ed. (Psychology), (Media)

 

I believe students need to play a role in the design of their instruction. A new teacher would do well to investigate applications of technology with which students have been become familiar and what they envision for the coming year. Then the teacher can engage the class with new directions keeping learners motivated and inspired.

The role and responsibility of an educator in the classroom, training, instructional design, or organizational environment is to perceive and anticipate the needs of the students. It is also critical to be accountable to educational stakeholders, and a model for good citizenship.

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​I believe students and employees learn best when motivated by mastery approach goals, playing a role in the design of learning activities. My goal for my students is that they discover their own style learning and self-expression. I would hope that they develop the art of thinking critically, persevere through challenges, remain inquisitive, and show initiative.

 

Instructional design has become increasingly learner-centered. I believe it is best to allow space within a course for student input and personal expression. Therefore, flexibility is often necessary. Highlighting the big picture, I remind them that they can simply draw from the main perspectives of whatever subject they are studying to answer any question they may find perplexing. They should integrate theories and be able to extract a plausible explanation from the psychodynamic, socio-cultural, neurological, evolutionary, cognitive and humanistic paradigms/theories/perspectives/models and even be able to debate which has the most influence on the issue at hand.

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Becoming knowledge conduits and consumers, developing higher order thinking skills as capable empathetic contributors to society is what I see as the grander purpose of learning.  Everything is open to debate. Students should always feel equipped to answer any question, if only with an insightful question. We are beyond mere memorization of who established what theory in what year. We are now able to perceive the impact of 19th and 20th century theories on human experience and should now seek to construct new paradigms where possible.