Teaching Philosophy Statement about “Teaching with Technology”
Introduction
A teaching philosophy statement is often defined as a professional narrative of our “teacherly beliefs and values” that have been established and developed through our interactions with “key theorists, researchers, and other teachers” (Alexander et al., 2012, p. 24). Because our teaching and our senses of who we are as teachers are inevitably situated due to the subjects and students to teach, institutional expectations, or resources available in our given contexts, it is essential for us to revisit our teaching philosophy statements and reconsider our self-identified selves in relation to our pedagogical approaches in the (re)situated teaching contexts. Particularly, it should be important to discuss our teaching philosophy related to technology tools because (1) they are now developing and evolving much faster than we have ever experienced before and (2) the kinds of available technology resources may vary depending on the institutions.
In the article written by Alexander et al. (2012), the authors gave the following prompt to their graduate students in their Teaching with Technology course.
A technology philosophy statement is a statement that focuses on your stance toward and values related to technology in the classroom. It might address the tools you use to teach, why you use these tools, how you situate yourself vis-a-vis these tools, and how you reflect upon and assess your teaching with technology methods. (p. 28)
This quote is quite important. Instead of simply using technology tools in our teaching, we have to consider rationales behind our choice and use of certain technology instruments. Having this prompt in mind, in this “teaching with technology” philosophy statement, I will respond to the 4-5 questions given by the Digital English Studio at the Pennsylvania State University: (1) How do you define effective learning or teaching with technology?; (2) What do you think are the best ways to teach with technology?; (3) Why do you have these beliefs?; and (4) What are the most important parts of your discipline to convey to students? How does your teaching philosophy and use of technology tie into this?
1. How do you define effective learning or teaching with technology?
First of all, I would like to start with the definition of technology. Particularly, in this philosophy statement, I draw on the definition of “digital resources” given in Robinson et al. (2019). The authors defined the digital resources as “hardware and software, operating systems and mobile applications, storage and networking, and the support structures that make them work” (p. 2), and introduced some examples developed during the past decades such as “[l]earning management systems” like Canvas or D2L, “[w]ebsite and wiki technology” like WordPress or Wix, “[c]loud services and storage” like Dropbox or iCloud, “[s]mart mobile devices and apps” like smartphones and tablets, “[c]ollaborative productivity software” like Google Docs, “[m]ultimedia sharing” like You Tube, and “[s]ocial media” like Facebook or X (Robinson et al., 2019, pp. 2-3). Although teachers (including me) do not necessarily embed all these digital resources into our course designs or classroom practices, they (we) can all agree that these are valuable resources that support their (our) teaching.
As a teacher of rhetoric and composition, I believe that the effective use of these digital resources in teaching is associated with three key ideas: (1) digital resources should help enhance writers’ accessibility to information sources and learning materials, (2) digital resources should provide writers with flexibility and access to a variety of writing platforms as effective means of communication, and (3) digital resources should encourage writers to understand and think about rhetorical aspects of written communication with technology.
Continue from here.
2. What do you think are the best ways to teach with technology?
Response here.
3. Why do you have these beliefs?
Response here.
4. What are the most important parts of your discipline to convey to students? How does your teaching philosophy and use of technology tie into this?
Response here.
Go Back to Teaching about Teaching Page
Go Back to Teaching with Technology (TwT) Main Page
Jun Akiyoshi 