Mrs. Russ' Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
~William Arthur Ward

“I would fain grow old learning many things.”
~Plato

My philosophy of teaching is always evolving with every new student and with every new school year. While I have many strong beliefs about learning, instructional design, and classroom management, I am always seeking to improve my style of teaching. I am always ready to try new things and to look at learning from a different perspective. I have developed an approach to teaching and learning that creates a safe, challenging, and joyful classroom.

Using principles from Harry Wong's Effective Teaching and the Responsive Classroom approach, I have a set of procedures and routines that structure my classroom for learning. These procedures and routines allow many activities to take place in the classroom, often simultaneously, with a minimum of confusion and wasted time.  Because they know what is expected of them, my students feel safe and secure and rarely have to be reprimanded for misbehavior. The focus in my classroom can be on learning, not managing behavior.

I believe that the teacher’s responsibility is not to teach the content. A teacher’s responsibility is to teach the students, and to make sure that all students learn something new every day. Brain research confirms what experienced teachers and parents have always known:

No two children are alike.

No two children learn in the identical way.

An enriched environment for one student is not necessarily enriched for another.

Because my students come to me with varied backgrounds, abilities, and skill levels, my challenge is to differentiate instruction to meet the individual needs of each student. Differentiating instruction means creating learning activities so that students of different abilities or learning needs experience equally appropriate ways to absorb, use, and develop concepts as a part of the daily learning process. Whether the student needs acceleration or remediation, my goal is to provide opportunities for every student to continue to grow academically. That is why students will not always be working on the same things. Sometimes students will work in small groups or with a partner. Sometimes students will be working independently or with the teacher. Differentiating the curriculum allows all students to work at an appropriate level.

My classroom community is one where every student feels valued, respected, and safe to take risks. I am a teacher who believes in creating life-long learners. I want to make learning fun so that my students look forward to coming to school each day. I want the children to leave the classroom every day excited and wondering what they will be doing tomorrow. Above all, I want each student to feel that they can, and will, be successful in third grade. I want my students to always put forth their best efforts. When students leave my classroom, I want their experience with learning to be an experience they will never forget.