“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”
― Robert Frost

I see teaching as a way of awakening a new understanding within students. I feel the best way to awaken this new understanding is by including three main ideas when structuring my courses: goal identification, critical and creative development, and incorporation of diverse perspectives.

When I was a student, I always felt more engaged and excited when I made connections between the material I was learning in class and my academic and personal goals. I feel it is important for students to be able to identify the connections between the material presented in class and their own goals. Therefore, I intend to help my students identify their academic and personal goals and aid them, when applicable, in reaching those goals. I hope to be both a guide and a fellow traveler down the path of our mutual growth and learning in the classroom.

I believe that a critical understanding and a creative application of knowledge enhances learning. As an artist I find that visual and tactile methods of instruction strengthen my own learning, and I plan to use these methods in the classroom. With the world demanding more multi-media skills of its professionals, I will encourage my students to engage in hands-on learning by developing blogs, video, and other multi-media projects to strengthen their creative design and communication skills.

As students work on developing their creativity, they are also making critical decisions regarding design, content development, and the analysis of information. I feel that creative and critical learning is a valuable way to reach students who, unbeknownst to themselves, engage in multi-media learning and content development daily through the use of the internet and social media.

Understanding in my classroom will not be gauged solely on a student’s ability to comprehend class material. A student’s ability to incorporate and apply, when applicable, knowledge they have gained outside of the course into class discussion and their work is what I will seek. I want students to be able to make the connections between the “real” and “academic” world.  I’ll ask my students to consider views contrary to their own. I feel that bringing into the classroom a diversity of thought, perspective, and belief is important and will help students gain a greater understanding of the world around them. I will not ask or require that students accept what other people believe, only that they are able to identify, acknowledge, and respect that others have different beliefs. I feel this inclusion of other perspectives adds to the diversity of learning and understanding within the classroom.

It is my hope that students will leave my class feeling accomplished at having met their goals. That they will be able to identify the value of what they have learned and its applicability to their own lives.

© 2020 Jessica Marsh