Luanne Fose, Ph.D. - Teaching Philosophy
Upon
being asked about his unusual method of improvisation, the famous jazz
composer and bassist Charles Mingus replied, "Making the simple complicated
is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, now
that's creativity!" This quote drives to
what I continually strive toward as an educator – to make the complicated
simple. If there is one single element that drives me as an instructor,
it is seeing the "Ahhh... I get it!" look in a student's eyes as they
grasp a new concept and as they come to comprehend how they came to that
understanding.
In my opinion, the ultimate challenge as a teacher is to masterfully guide and empower individuals to become their own teachers by showing them how to strip down complex concepts into more elementary ones; these elementary concepts can then be built upon later as their knowledge matures. As students become their own teachers and take this approach one step higher, by teaching one another, they then become the masters of their own knowledge and learning becomes firmly solidified. If a student is sitting in the backseat while you, as the teacher, drive them somewhere, they may arrive at the final destination but they’ll never be able to get there on their own accord. Putting a student in the “driver’s seat” allows them to take on the responsibility for where their learning is headed and aids them in remembering the signposts that helped them get there so that they can journey there again or travel even further.
Understandably, in learning any new skill or theory, there are many questions to be answered. As Socrates demonstrated, good teaching encourages students to ask the "right" questions. Students need to be guided by the instructor to ask the right questions, at the right time, and to explore the questions that haven't been asked yet - truly a challenge. However, the most difficult challenge in this type of teaching is helping students find a way to answer questions for themselves. My goal, as I gain more and more teaching experience, is to instill a confidence in my students, which will empower them to seek answers for themselves and thus, lead them down the path of life-long learning.
As a teacher, I like to imagine myself as a Sherpa - those expert mountaineers who guide less experienced climbers up the Himalayas. Similarly, as their teacher I have “been up the mountain” already; I know the more dangerous footholds to avoid, and I am already acclimated to the higher altitude so that when my students encounter difficulties, I can pass them an oxygen bottle to aid them in a successful ascension up the mountaintop.
Educational technology, instructional design, and new media are changing so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up with the developments in this discipline. There is simply no way to know everything - the language and technology change everyday - too fast for anyone to fully master. However, I believe it is my responsibility as an educator to stay "in tune" as much as possible with new developments, theories, and techniques in my field and to integrate this new knowledge with my past experience as I pass it on to my students. I try to approach the classroom with the basic tenet that we are all students. I envision a teacher/student relationship that promotes an atmosphere for individuals to challenge one another, show mutual respect for each other, and learn from one another; this includes me, as the teacher, as well. Ultimately, I desire to grow intellectually and professionally with my students.
As an individual, it is vitally important to me that I avoid stagnation and grow as I endeavor to make new discoveries. This is clearly reflected in my personal conviction that if I fail to learn something new everyday, the day has been wasted. Hopefully, I will learn as much or more from my students than they will learn from me. Each quarter brings upon different dynamics with the influx of different students and this dynamic is what keeps teaching exciting for me. Teaching is always new, always different, with each group of students and set of challenges each term. If there ever comes a moment when teaching becomes "dry and boring" to me, I hope I will have the courage to step away from it and move on to another career.
Although it is necessary in this type of discipline to lecture or demonstrate from time to time, I prefer to teach in a constructionist environment that incorporates student-driven, hands-on work and active learning. In such an environment, I encourage students to work on some type of large-scale, authentic project and observe enthusiastically as they become increasingly more comfortable learning and interacting with one another. I believe that this type of learning more clearly emulates the reality of the K-12 classroom that many of my students will encounter as future educators. For me, instructional design is a way in which I can blend my knowledge of learning and instructional theory with technology and creativity in order to produce unique, challenging, and interesting materials for learning.
As a music theory/music technology professor in a "former life," I came to this field through the "back door," as it were. It all began in my quest to find more creative and exciting methods for instilling music theory concepts that can sometimes be tedious and repetitive in nature. It was in my initial efforts to "make the complicated simple" that I became enthusiastic about what educational technology has to offer and plunged headlong into this field.
The impetus for changing careers midstream in order to teach in this field was greatly influenced by my own personal experiences with fellow educators. Having witnessed a broad chasm between educators and technology, I am daily driven to try and "make the complicated simple" in order to ease the fear and trepidation that plagues many educators who attempt, or refrain from technology use in the classroom. I truly believe that I can help future educators bridge that chasm and lead them down a path to a new world full of creative possibilities that will assist them in turning on that "Ahhh... I get it!" light bulb within their student's heads. For as Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” and I believe that is an absolute truth.