Teaching Philosophy—William Buskist
Psychology Department—Auburn University
If teaching is about anything, it is about opportunity—for both student and teacher alike. Effective teachers create opportunities for students to acquire new knowledge and new skills within an academic domain and within the larger framework of life. Effective teachers also create opportunities for themselves to deepen and broaden their knowledge base and skill levels within and across academic fields and to mature as educated individuals. They create opportunities to be challenged by their students and colleagues.
I believe that to create such opportunities, teachers need three things: a deep and abiding knowledge of their own discipline, effective communication skills, and a keen sense of the context in which their teaching occurs.
Knowledge
Teaching begins with learning about a particular subject matter. As I learn more about my field, I am in an increasingly better position to share that knowledge with my students. Without knowledge, teachers have little of substance to give to their students. Thus, effective teachers are learners before they are communicators.
Communication
To know a subject matter is one thing; to communicate that knowledge to another human being is something very different. I believe communication is at the heart of effective teaching: What topics do I choose to share with my students? How do I explain difficult concepts? How can I demonstrate or illustrate important points? What critical thinking activities do I engage my students in that will further their learning? What form of media do I use to enhance student understanding? Each of these questions highlights a dimension of communication that I must anticipate as I prepare each class presentation.
Context
Teaching and learning do not occur in a vacuum. One of my cardinal beliefs about teaching is that both students and teachers bring to the learning situation a host of variables that influence how well teachers teach and how well students learn. Students bring into the classroom disparate levels of intelligence, learning histories, motivational levels, willingness to change, personal and social distractions, and values they place on becoming educated individuals. Similarly, teachers enter the classroom with varying levels of knowledge, communication skills, interest in teaching, concern for students and their learning, and their willingness to make themselves available to students outside of class. These variables (and others) converge in the classroom, creating a dynamic and emotionally charged environment—the classroom is far from being neutral playing field. I believe that the key to using this environment to enhance student learning is to develop rapport with students in and out of the classroom.
Rapport
To teach well, I believe teachers must first capture their students’ attention. I try to do so by creating a warm, supportive learning environment. I arrive to class early and chat casually with my students. I learn their names and their interests. I promote class discussion by posing questions and problems. I attempt to reinforce all student contributions to class discussion. I treat students respectfully on all occasions. I make direct eye contact with students and smile frequently. I share with them my passion for my subject matter, for them, and for teaching. I am readily accessible outside of class. These rapport-building actions increase the likelihood that my students will be more receptive to me as teacher—and to my message—than they might otherwise be if I took a dour approach.
Influence
By building rapport with my students, I increase the likelihood that I might influence my students on several fronts: to know something about psychology; to understand how psychology applies to them in their everyday lives; to understand the impact of their behavior on others and how others impact their behavior; and, perhaps most importantly, to become more skilled critical thinkers and to develop a life-long love for learning.
I believe that Jackie Robinson, the late great Brooklyn Dodger who broke the so-called “color barrier” in professional baseball in 1947, was correct when he said “Our lives are unimportant, except for the impact we have on others.” Surely, our role as college and university teachers is to influence our students—not so much in what they think as in how they think. Effective teachers share more than the facts of their discipline with their students—they share insights into how to collect, organize, analyze, synthesize, and apply these facts to important questions that face the world. I believe that to have genuine influence on students, teachers must inspire their students to think critically in and out of the classroom.
Opportunity
Every time I teach, I have the opportunity to share my discipline and my passion for it with my students. I have the opportunity to challenge them how to expand their intellectual comfort zones to newer and larger dimensions of understanding and insight. I have the opportunity to teach them how to think critically about problems they are likely to face during their lifetimes. I have the opportunity to form meaningful, and in some cases enduring and collegial relationships with bright and interesting people. In turn, my students have the opportunity to learn what I know about psychology. They have the opportunity to learn effective problem-solving skills and strategies. They have the opportunity to mature intellectually and to allow their understanding of psychology to fuel their own passions for learning and achievement. We have the shared opportunity to push each other to become more thoroughly educated individuals.
Renewal
Teaching is a craft; it is part art and part science, which means there is always something to learn about it—there always seems to be something that can be done just a little bit better. Teaching is a complicated and sometimes messy business. An essential element of becoming and remaining an effective teacher is frequent reflection on one’s life as a teacher. My reflective practices involve reading about good teaching, experimenting with new ideas for class presentations, reading and revising my statement of teaching philosophy, keeping a journal of my teaching experiences—both the successes and the failures, regularly evaluating my teaching, observing “master teachers” and sometimes taking a break from my regular teaching assignments to try something new.
Summary
In short, I believe that teaching provides teachers and students the opportunity to gather in a sacred place—the classroom—in the quest to become, in every sense of the word, better people. After all, education is the starting point for the examined life, and only people who examine their lives stand any real chance of genuine and enduring personal growth.