My Philosophy Of Teaching: My Experience As A University Student

Philosophy of Teaching

Glené Mynhardt

Graduate Teaching Associate

Department of Biology

Winner of the 2010 Graduate Associate Teaching Award

I spent the first thirteen years of my life in South Africa. Growing up in one of the most beautiful and species diverse countries stimulated a natural desire for me to want to study biology. When my family moved to the States, I remember having to make several cultural adjustments. Many were changes on a personal level, but becoming familiar with new ways of learning was especially challenging. High school was relatively easy for me, but being a college student required much more effort. Despite a strong desire to learn, and a passion for biology, the typical lecture setting at the very populous institutions

It is by breaking down the barriers to learning that students can face their own misconceptions. My background as a struggling undergraduate has given me a great measure of sensitivity to each student’s learning process. I firmly believe that students enter the classroom with expectations to learn and advance their knowledge, which I assessed in my own classroom one term by asking two of my 30-student honors labs to write down their personal definition of “learning.” I was not surprised to see that all of them carried the same underlying message, that learning is the process of gaining new knowledge or perspectives that change the way we think about the world. In order to keep students motivated, I have found that it becomes imperative to be a creative teacher, by utilizing various active learning methods like group discussions, peer teaching or presentations, and “muddy points” cards, the latter of which allows students to write down what they think they don’t clearly understand. Students rarely admit that they don’t know anything, so using methods that allow them to bring their misconceptions or misunderstandings to light provides an opportunity for me to determine whether my teaching is effective. Another tool that I find equally

I have had humbling opportunities to help other TAs with their teaching, which has been remarkably insightful and informative. My roles as a teaching fellow, orientation facilitator for the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching (UCAT), and as graduate UCAT consultant, have brought teaching to the forefront of my graduate career. The same qualities, which are meaningful to me as a teacher – making the classroom process-driven and individualized – are echoed in my role as a mentor to other teachers. The classroom is a dynamic space, where each teacher can do the things he or she wishes to do. It is the place where another undergraduate student can struggle, fail, and learn how to excel. It is the place where I started as a student, the place that could have taught me so much more than what I learned. Years after struggling as that student, I am a teacher, a mentor, and a researcher, but only because I found something meaningful that taught me something about biology and science. That is what I aim to create for my