Brooks

Seven Guiding Principles

Listed below are several principles which guide my teaching.

1. Relevance: Learners will have little patience and interest in topics that they see as unimportant. It is important to pay attention to the topics which engage learners and adapt teaching materials to fit their interests. After all, the teacher is not the person who has to learn the material.
2. Enthusiasm: There is a limited audience for Ben Stein’s teaching style portrayed in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. A failure to communicate enthusiasm can result in learners being disengaged with the subject matter. While my own vocal inflections are not entirely different from Ben Stein’s, I try to communicate enthusiasm through creative use of light humour, art, music, and live demonstrations (where relevant). Enthusiasm lies within and need not be communicated solely through energetic movements.
3. Parallel Construction: We learn from an early age that 1+1=2; however, we do not learn this in isolation. We are constantly learning that this applies to apples, ducks, jelly beans, and any number of objects in the world we interact with. By constructing this concept in parallel with many different experiences, our brain forms many pathways which serve as the basis for more complex concepts, like 2+2=4. Furthermore, our diverse world needs to serve persons from many different backgrounds; as a teacher, I feel that providing information through many parallels is essential for improving depth of understanding and delivering material to a diverse, multicultural audience.
4. Rapid Feedback: Hindsight may be 20-20, however it does no good to receive feedback when it’s too late. During the final exam is exactly the wrong time to tell students that they completely misunderstood vital concepts in the first midterm. I firmly believe that giving learners ongoing feedback and opportunities to test their own knowledge on a subject is an excellent way to help students reach a high level of understanding in any topic. Without frequent feedback, learners have no way to adjust their focus and spot gaps in their understanding. I apply a similar philosophy in computer programming as I am a strong advocate for unit testing.
5. Humanity: Teaching is about humans. Recognizing that the persons being taught are human, and each have their own human needs, is important for ensuring that they are capable of building new mental pathways. Humans also make mistakes; rather than demoralizing those humans, I feel the quote by Beethoven best summarizes my position: ”To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”
6. Participation: I believe in giving learners the opportunity to be a part of their own learning. The participation of students in their learning endeavours can range from allowing students to design their own course projects, or could be as simple as having discussions during learning.
7. Community: It takes more than one person to build a bridge. When it comes to building a mental information highway, it helps to have more than one builder. I believe in fostering a diverse community amongst learners and enable collaboration on course work. People collaborate whether it is officially sanctioned or not; by explicitly encouraging collaboration, it is possible for learners to create connections that would otherwise be impossible.

Revisions

The above principles represent my current teaching philosophy, however they are not static. As I encounter new students and gain new experience, my methods for teaching the world may change. I desire to be more than a simple textbook of knowledge; I desire to be a student of all cultures while teaching my subjects.