It has been over a decade since I started teaching. It is truly said that teaching is an evolving process. I have advanced so much over these years, both in terms of my teaching styles as well as teaching approaches. I have realized that irrespective of the level and background of students being taught, it is important that learning should happen. I generally apply communicative approach in the class. My goals while teaching a class are to have a respectful classroom environment wherein students feel welcomed and safe, ensure to the most possible extent equal participation of students and make the lessons engaging and fun.
These goals listed above seem ambitious but I use my strengths to achieve these. I am a hardworking, humble, fun loving, creative, flexible and a patient person who sees her success in terms of her students’ accomplishments. Owing to my secular beliefs, I strongly opine in the virtue of empathy coupled with respect, especially in a culturally diverse environment.
In my perspective, it is imperative that dignity of all students be maintained especially in a multi-cultural class. For this I highly appreciate and encourage my students, as these are undeniably very powerful tools in a teacher’s hands. Moreover, along with this I put extra effort in ensuring that all students participate in classroom activities and no one be left behind. To achieve this goal I use name tags in addition to preparing a name list of students, I tick every time a student speaks. This ensures that every student gets a fair opportunity to speak as well as receive my fair attention. I see great value in using this checklist strategy. Additionally, it leads to fulfilling my goal of achieving 100% class involvement. For instance, in an interactive circle activity, everyone spoke except one student, Elizabeth. Towards the end of activity, all the names on the list were ticked except Elizabeth’s name because she did not participate in the activity. In an online session if the number of students are more, this goes unnoticed. But with the help of this list, I was able to identify this and encourage her to speak in 2 activities held that day.
Furthermore, I believe in not just teaching a class but also developing a good bond with my students. This makes the students be honest and open up with their teacher, developing mutual trust. To achieve this goal I use name tags. Additionally, I write down a few details of the student on the name tags, which I get to know while talking with them. For example, while teaching in LLC with TRU, Malka, a student from Sri Lanka came after a few weeks, I welcomed her and told her that it was good to hear her voice. I also asked her the time in Sri Lanka, which filled her with joy. Likewise, I remembered that Tina is a figure skater and mentioned it to her during an activity which made her feel very happy. This self-devised strategy is especially helpful during online sessions. I see great value in developing good bonds with students as it is a part of my personality as well. This does makes the classroom environment more welcoming and conducive to learning.
To keep the sessions engaging is crucial as it benefits the students. To achieve this goal in an online environment, I have been using the tools on Moodle extensively. Along with this, students also love new activities supporting the lesson. The variety in using modality and creativity in class, makes lessons intriguing and fun. Also, adding little humor helps as I have always believed in spreading knowledge through happiness. A point worth mentioning is that, I feel adaptation is the key to success. I tailor the session as per students and stay flexible rather that sticking rigidly to the lesson plan.
As a human being, I believe in constantly growing professionally and improvising personally. For instance, during the ongoing global pandemic, online teaching happened and I readily embraced it. Lastly, I believe that as a human being, our entire life is a learning process, be it from students even.