Teaching Philosophy, Goals, and Objectives

I have come to appreciate and subscribe to the belief that the object of teaching is not "covering the material" but "helping students learn." Consequently, my role as teacher is to facilitate students' learning. I cannot do the learning for them. Learning is the student's responsibility. My responsibility is to motivate students to learn. Since motivation is a natural outcome of relevancy, I attempt to make the content of every course I teach meaningful and relevant to life. Whenever possible I move learning from the textbook into the "real" world, applying theories and concepts to applicable situations.

In working with students and helping them learn and grow, teachers need to hold positive assumptions about students' potential. I find that students will rise to virtually any challenge I present when they sense that what I am asking is fair and relevant. The result is that my students routinely exceed their own expectations. My responsibility is to keep their initial drive and enthusiasm for learning intact, or in some cases, to awaken a dormant curiosity, while thwarting students' desire to be content with easy answers and marginal effort.

Since students learn in different ways, my job as teacher is to discover the one best way for as many of my students as I can. The approach that works best for me, and the one I rely on most often is to create enticements to learning instead of penalties for not learning. In this context I try to create a learning environment that motivates students to go further than they have ever gone before. For example, a strategy I use in my introductory finance class is to have students enter into a Learning Behavior Contract (LBC). LBCs engage students in setting their own learning goals at the beginning of the semester. Once students establish goals (expressed as target points, target percentage, and target grade), I provide steady and purposeful feedback throughout the semester on how well their classroom behavior matches their goals.

I also enter into a partnership with my students; a partnership in which I convey to them a sense of my personal involvement and commitment to their well-being. I create a relationship where we are working together to conquer the subject matter. It's not me against them, but us, together, working as partners. This means treating students with respect, treating them fairly, and respecting their rights. To this end I actively solicit student input, listen with sincerity, and incorporate students' ideas into what I do.

A good part of motivating my students comes from setting a standard of excellence through personal example, from expressing my own enthusiasm for and commitment to learning and encouraging my students to do the same. To this end, I am passionate about every course I teach and forever conscious about being a good role model. My reward is the students' commitment, enthusiasm, and in most, but not all cases, high academic achievement.