Teaching & Learning Philosophy
“the more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their interventions in the world as transformers of that world.”
-- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
I received the majority of my pre-college schooling in Syrian public schools. Surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire, school looked more like a prison. In addition to the sense of physical entrapment, school was emotionally suffocating: we sat at our desks for hours, regurgitating information teachers deposited in us. In history class, we learned about wars that were waged in the Middle East. We learned about Israel and the Jewish state from a single perspective, one that I later discovered to be inaccurate, biased, and incomplete. In physics, we memorized formulas and did the same problems repeatedly. It was as if thinking was prohibited. Studying in the U.S. was an act of liberation, freeing my body, mind, and spirit. In higher education, I found my voice, learned to think for myself, and most importantly, I embraced who I am and the kind of world I wish to help build. This experience of liberatory education is one that motivates and guides my approach as a teacher, focusing on fostering critical consciousness, a community of learners, and co-constructed engaged learning.
Critical Consciousness
As a steward of learning, my role is not only to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, but to help students engage with and make meaning of what they learn within the reality of their lives - a pedagogical outcome that Paulo Freire refers to as critical consciousness. When co-teaching an undergraduate seminar entitled (In)equality in p-16 American Education, we oriented all activities and assignments towards challenging students to observe social systems from a critical lens and to create connections between the underlying forces that create and sustain educational inequality. Students read about racism, housing policies, redlining, school (de)segregation, urban centers, poverty, community cultural wealth, among a myriad of topics intended to broaden their scope on educational inequities. Students conducted a case study of a metropolitan area of interest to identify the state of educational inequality through the lens of class reading. Some chose their hometowns, others chose cities with which they were unfamiliar, but all students expressed awe at what they found: the pervasiveness of inequity. Students presented 20 different metro areas. These students represent 20 future doctors, lawyers, teachers, parents, and citizens that moved closer towards manifesting a critical consciousness in how they navigate the world. My goal as a teacher is to facilitate transformative experiences like that for every class at every level.
Community of Learners
Learning does not occur in a vacuum, nor is it an individual task. Rather, effective learning can only happen when rapport is built among the students and between the students and the instructor. It is only in a community of learners that transformative challenge can happen. In my experiences as a student and a teacher, I have learned the power of building relationships in the classroom, and restoring these relationships when harm occurs. I co-taught a graduate seminar that included both masters and doctoral-level students entitled Social Justice and Inclusion in Higher Education. Conversations about social justice are deeply personal, especially in diverse classrooms with a spectrum of privileged and marginalized identities. Therefore, one of our goals for the course was to bring students to know and see one another as humans, to tolerate discomfort, and confront pain, trauma, and harm. We accomplished this through intentional learning activities: Every class session started with an opening circle with a prompt intended to introduce vulnerability into the classroom space. Online discussion board questions induced reflection on class readings from a personal perspective before moving towards practice. The course was my first experience teaching remotely through Zoom. Fortunately, my academic experience prepared me to be an effective instructor in a virtual setting. Two of my doctoral courses were particularly helpful: Teaching and Learning at a Distance, and Theories of Learning with Technology. These courses gave me the toolkit needed to facilitate a rich experience for students regardless of the modality. I learned that it is possible to build community, even without meeting synchronously or face-to-face, armed with intentional and theoretically sound practices.
Co-constructed Classrooms
In Experience and Education (1938), John Dewey wrote: “It is [the teacher’s] business to be on the alert to see what attitudes and habitual tendencies are being created…. [the teacher] must, in addition have the sympathetic understanding of individuals as individuals which gives him [sic] an idea of what is actually going on in the minds of those who are learning” . This statement speaks wholeheartedly to the notion of education as a co-constructed activity where students play an active role in shaping course goals, progress, and outcomes. I believe in the importance of listening to student feedback and input when moving a course or class forward. That is not to say that I relinquish control. Rather, I incorporate mechanisms of formative feedback that maximize student outcomes. In one of the classes I co-taught, we implemented “exit tickets” that students were asked to complete upon leaving each class period. This system allowed us to gauge student reactions to class material and activities, and to pick up on the needs and wants of the classroom community, and then implement the needed changes when preparing for the next class session. For example, when students indicated enjoying small-group discussions about their final papers, we allotted more time for break out rooms. This minor change not only fulfilled a need that students expressed, but also showed students that we as the instructors are paying attention to their needs and wants. That is the type of environment I like to promote in all my classes.
Engaged Learning
Guided by the academic research and literature about teaching and learning I studied in my Instructional Design and College Teaching courses, I maximize opportunities for active learning and engagement. One of my most enjoyable teaching experiences was co-teaching Legal Issues in Higher Education. Every week, students read numerous court cases pertaining to higher education. To promote the synthesis of information across complex legal topics, my co-instructor and I built each class meeting around what we called a Socratic Spotlight: a team of students was assigned to each topic and were expected to answer questions regarding case law vis-à-vis the Socratic Method. Teams responded to challenging questions fielded by the instructors as well as their peers. The goal was to invoke critical thinking and to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions. These Socratic Spotlights made for dynamic and lively class periods.
The feedback we received from the students was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, ten out of 17 students who completed course evaluations mentioned the Socratic Spotlight when asked about the most beneficial aspects of the course. One student commented: “I had never participated in [the Socratic Method] before but found it to be such an effective and fun teaching method. It was incredibly engaging and made a 3-hour virtual class go by quickly, which is a miracle!” Another student wrote, “this was probably the course in my master’s program that has been most out of my comfort zone as far as the content, but I am walking away feeling confident in all that I’ve learned.” These are the types of reactions I wish for from my students. I believe in challenging students while supporting their growth; embracing discomfort while fostering empathy; and creating classroom environments conducive to learning.