Douglas Holschuh
Teaching Philosophy
Doctoral
Candidate
Instructional Technology
Department of Educational Psychology & Instructional Technology
University of Georgia
COMING
OF AGE IN MY DEPARTMENT, I have been born and raised to be a constructivist
and a constructionist – jargony descriptors that translate loosely
as I believe that learners construct their own meaning and knowledge, and
that the best way to foster this construction is to have them create some
sort of hands-on artifact around which they can base their understanding.
As a teacher, I believe my job is to help facilitate the students’
work on their project and on their construction of knowledge. I see the
construction of knowledge as happening on two levels, the social level as
well as the individual level so the fostering of a community of learners
is an important aspect to my teaching.
Within this community, I see myself as a guide more than the fount of all knowledge, and I want to present myself as a fellow traveller on the learning journey. As such, I try not to put myself in too many situations where I hover over them as the teacher, and I would rather them have the feeling that we’re all in this together.
A constructionist environment lends itself to student-driven hand-on work rather than teacher-driven lectures and presentations, and I want to create an environment where the students feel comfortable learning and interacting with each other as they work on large-scale, authentic projects. I would prefer to stay away from long lectures, and if discussion is needed, I would hope to make that an environment in which I facilitate the discussion but don’t dominate it. I am a firm believer in mastery learning, where the students “getting it” (even if it happens late) is more important than testing well on the material.