David Gazeley

EDUC 250

David Gazeleys Philosophy of

Education
My philosophy of education is a combination of teacher-centered and
student-centered beliefs. I draw from the essentialism philosophical branch
of teacher-centered information delivery, while my student-centered
philosophies utilize bits of progressivism, social reconstruction, and
existentialism to create technologically literate citizens.
Teaching Tech Ed is an eclectic process and this is reflected in my
teaching philosophy, which draws from all of the aforementioned
philosophies to create an informed, creative, and technologically literate
citizen. Specifically, my teacher-centered philosophy is based in the belief
that information and technology are rapidly changing; therefore, students
must build a base of knowledge that is essential to understand and be a part
of their technological world. When Tech Ed was Industrial Arts, I would have
relied on a more perennialist philosophy, delivering the unchanging,
necessary information in the proper order that was needed to enter each
appropriate career. This has evolved to a more essentialist slant. Students
still need age old relevant information, but the nature of technology now is
such, that we need to adjust what we teach on a continual basis. Tech Ed is a
subject that everyone needs the same baseline information, regardless of
socio-economic status; everyone uses technology, no mater how poor or
disadvantaged they are.
I believe life is a series of cooperative efforts and education should be
cooperative in nature. The philosophy of progressivism is apparent in Tech Ed
through its inquiry-based, cooperative nature where students use hands-on,
true to life experiences to learn from. Students are presented with a situation
or problem to solve and be challenged to seek out information, to construct
hypotheses, and collaborate in order to achieve successful solutions. My
students will be involved with cooperative, student-centered learning that
challenges them to think about consequences, be they good or bad, in a
collaborative environment. In my classroom I will use collaboration
extensively to achieve my learning objectives. I believe students learn from
each other when they cooperate in a common goal. During my experience
with mentoring the BEST robotics team I have witnessed cooperative
learning. Students are engaged with a common goal that they work in
collaboration to achieve. Therefore, in my classroom, the roles of the student
will be to learn, collaborate, and cooperate from each other as well as from
me.

David Gazeley

EDUC 250

The social reconstructionist element of my teaching philosophy is

demonstrated in my belief that students can and will make a positive
difference in society; I will highlight socially relevant curriculum that
stimulates higher thinking skills. To this end, my students will learn to apply
the engineering design process to create products and services that satisfy
human wants and needs. They will learn to apply this skill to benefit all
aspects of their lives and those of their fellow citizens. I will use leadership
and cooperative learning in my classroom to achieve this goal. I have seen
constructivism work in my Boy Scout troop with my scout leaders. The higher
ranked boys lead and teach the lower ranked in order to increase their
knowledge and skills but also to reinforce their own.
Creativity is a central theme in Tech Ed; freethinking is encouraged
throughout the engineering design process. Cooperative creativity is
essential to the brainstorming process where group members bring forth
ideas in a judgment-free environment. Often times the notion that form
follows function is evident when an idea develops into a real product. The
design notebook is largely an existential display. There is a formal order to
the engineering notebook; however, its contents are made up from an
individuals sketches and ideas that represent an their own perception of
what is the answer to the challenge being faced. I believe students need to
express their ideas without the worry of thinking differently; on the contrary,
I encourage divergent thinking. All inventions created are the result of
someone thinking differently; therefore, I will encourage students to think
outside of normal conventions, to tap into their own unique creativity.
I plan to incorporate these parts of educational philosophies to achieve
my goal as a Tech Ed teacher, to create technologically literate citizens
through the integration of STEM subjects as well as reading, writing and
social studies. I will use design challenges, projects, and interactive webbased activities to facilitate thought-provoking and productive leaning.