My teaching theory evolved through learning and acquiring teaching knowledge from my supervisors, colleagues and educational system. I have always been a very good learner and a researcher. These qualities have helped me a lot in my teaching career because teaching also requires certain level of expertise, attitude towards gaining knowledge, and research work for creating an effective material for the related subject.
My teaching strategy is to guide students and provide them content knowledge with understanding. I make sure course lesson objective is clear and transparent to students so that they know exactly what the lesson is all about? And what is expected from them.
Students need to be familiar with teacher’s teaching style and feel comfortable with teaching environment. I try to call each student by their names to build up a good relationship with them. If you know your students by name it makes you more approachable. I always engage students in class conversation, recognize them by their names, and seem to include them in the domain of attention; the subject matter seems more accessible. The nonverbal message goes out that the student is a part of the community of people who can do IT, Business, or whatever the subject is?
My favorite teaching method is experiential learning that focuses on learning by doing. I design and prepare my material keeping direct experiences in mind that include preparatory and reflective exercises. I encourage participation and involvement of students in the class to make them feel good, connected and be part of the class that ultimately leads to motivation. As a teacher, I try to build fun learning environment and draw students attention by keeping the content of the course interesting and practical based on real life examples and experiences rather than overloading them with boring slides and lengthy material. Because once you have the student’s attention, they will be eager to participate and more open to ideas. I believe learning should be hands on experience that the entire class can share. We must let student experience learning that is fun, exciting and interactive.
I also believe that case studies present students with real-life problems and enable them to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real life situations. Cases also encourage students to develop logical problem solving skills and, if used in teams, group interaction skills. Students define problems, analyze possible alternative actions and provide solutions with a rationale for their choices.
As we all know that motivation is the key to success, so I always try to keep the students motivated by involving them through class participation and rewarding them. I use continuous assessment strategy in my class so that students can have meaningful learning and assess their performance throughout the course. This helps in identifying areas of problem and provides them solid solutions that improve their current learning level. I always try to quote examples from daily life in class and make the topics fun and easy to learn with the help of examples from daily life. I follow different strategies for different course disciplines and different student’s level.
My teaching metaphor is to prepare students not only for the exams but for their future and career life.