Sample Belief Statements about Teaching

What a teacher believes about both teaching and learning can have a major impact on the classroom environment. Teachers tend to implement classroom practices that reflect their philosophical beliefs. Below are a number of common beliefs about teaching.

• The teacher is a facilitator, coordinator; not the dispenser of knowledge.
• To have understanding, students must be able to state and apply the concept.
• Knowledge (mental structures and content) is varied by maturation, social interaction, and experience.
• Cognitive conflict can fuel the learning process. New information may fit the existing mental structures, and the students can explain the phenomenon, OR there is a mismatch between observations and mental structures.
• Students should coordinate their knowledge with what they already know. Organization between a new or altered mental structure and existing structures must take place to bring....
• The main purpose of education is to develop students' ability to think critically and integrate ideas, rather than to accumulate facts.
• There will be no significant changes in the performance of novice physics teachers that does not have as its center teacher attitudes.
• Teaching, as opposed to instructing, is primarily about process. The critical content of any learning experience is the method or process through which learning occurs. In the words of Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message."
• Once students have learned to ask substantial questions and how to find the answers, no one can keep them from learning all that they need to know.
• Active criticism of new ideas is a more desirable response than passive acceptance.
• Meaning is constructed, not prescribed.
• Discovering knowledge is the business of students.
• Teaching is what teachers do; learning is what students do. There may be no direct connection between the two.
• Students learn best when actively engaged.
• Success is best measured in the behavioral changes of students.
• Meaningful learning occurs when students are allowed to confront real problems, make choices, and find solutions.
• If prospective teachers are to learn how to help their students learn, they must be immersed in the same learning experiences that their students will encounter.
  

Return to Philosophical Background.

Return to PHY 310 Syllabus.