Dr. Matthew Cole's Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is based on these concepts. I believe that all students are unique learners, and that a one-size-fits-all approach does not hold true in my classroom.  In contrast, I am committed to an idiographic approach to teaching, in which I attempt to tailor instruction to a student's particular needs.
 
As a teacher who is in the early stages of a university teaching career, I believe that centering my teaching philosophy around the concept that the "student is always right" has helped me to connect with my students and learn how best to teach them. This approach supports three important teaching goals:
" active relationships with students
" feedback from students
" student participation in the learning process
 
I was exposed to the concept, "the organism is always right", as a graduate student in an Experimental Analysis of Behavior course. During this course, one experimental project laid the foundation for my current teaching philosophy. My task was to train a rat to walk a 360 degrees circle clockwise, and then counterclockwise, using food as a positive reinforcer. Before I implemented Brady's concept of learning, I believed that I was working with a "dumb" rat-the rat just wasn't learning. However, I quickly learned that the problem was not with the rat, but rather with my method of teaching. It wasn't long before I learned that the rat required a schedule of positive reinforcement different from that needed by the other rats in the class. Therefore, I learned that indeed, "the organism is always right," and must govern one's approach to teaching and learning.
 
When I apply this concept to my own philosophy of teaching, I learn to help the students who are having difficulty learning by incorporating more detail, patience, and personal attention in my teaching style. For those students who are learning the material quickly, I seek to maintain their engagement and excitement with the material by fostering thoughtful discussions and expanded critical thinking.
 
Constructivism also informs my teaching philosophy.  This concept identifies issues involved in students actively trying to construct meaning to new experiences. Meaning requires understanding wholes as well as parts. And parts must be understood in the context of wholes. Therefore, the learning process focuses on primary concepts, not isolated facts. In order to teach well, an instructor must understand that the purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own meaning, not just memorize the "right" answers and regurgitate someone else's meaning. Under the theory of constructivism, I focus on the following:

" making connections between facts and fostering new understanding
" tailoring my teaching strategies to student responses and encouraging students to analyze, interpret, and predict information
" using open-ended questions and promoting extensive dialogue among students.

As I progress along this extremely rewarding path as a teacher, I look forward to improving my teaching skills, refining my teaching philosophy, and contributing to the development of highly skilled and successful psychology students.

I believe that integrating both behavioral and constructivist understandings into my teaching results in a philosophy of education that is grounded in the knowledge of how people learn and behave, and how they make meaning of new experiences.