Teaching Philosophy

Introduction 

As a graduate student preparing to teach FYC in the fall, I have found myself reflecting often on my own experiences during undergrad and how those experiences helped paved the path I’m on now. I believe as an educator that it is important to help ensure that my students are prepared for their future careers, both in academia and beyond. I myself struggled through many challenges throughout my time in undergrad, ranging from starting college during the Covid 19 pandemic to experiencing health problems. I understand that in addition to trying to succeed academically, students are experiencing their own hardships. In order to ensure student success, I believe it is imperative to approach the classroom with empathy and an understanding that each and every one of my students have their own unique needs. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs & Alderfer's ERG Theory

Much of my teaching philosophy aligns with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Clayton Alderfer's accompanying ERG theory.

To briefly summarize the two theories, Maslow believed that people have five unique needs, all of which are important, but some more fundamental than others. Maslow believed that it was impossible to achieve happiness without following a specific order, and so he arranged these needs into a pyramid, with the lowest levels being the most vital to achieving fulfillment. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs follows this order: psychological (access to food, water, shelter, etc.,), safety and security, loving and belonging, esteem (self-esteem), and self-actualization (achieving one's highest potential). 

While Maslow believed people needed to follow the order I have listed above and fulfill each level before moving onto the next in order to achieve true happiness (i.e. what good is having self-esteem if one does not have access to food and water?), Alderfer believed that people could be motivated by different needs at the same time, prioritizing different needs based on their life view, and could even move up and down the pyramid. Alderfer grouped Maslow's Needs into three categories: existence, relatedness, and growth. Rather than telling people to achieve each level in order to achieve happiness, Alderfer recommends that people focus on one need from each category in order to live a fulfilled and balanced life. 

You can find Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Clayton ERG theory below. 

Emphasis on Practicality 

Because every student will need to take FYC toward the beginning of their academic career, I believe the course curriculum should be structured to best prepare students for future classes and their life outside of academia. I believe this this core principal applies to the top two categories in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, "esteem" and "self-actualization" as students will not only understand how my class will benefit them in the long run, but they will gain confidence in their skills and be one step closer to achieving their desired future.  

Rather than teaching material in a vacuum, I believe it is best to teach students how such material can manifest in their everyday lives. With my overarching theme of storytelling, I aim to showcase how stories show up in their everyday lives, such as commercials, speeches, and discussions with friends, and how these stories potentially shape their views of themselves and their communities, and the choices they make. Through rhetorical analysis, students will be able to identify why certain stories are more impactful than others and how these stories might are crafted to impact their lives. Students will also learn how to write their own stories, in hope of creating positive change within their lives and community. In all, students will better be able to think critically about the stories they are being told and create their stories, a skill that is useful not only in English courses, but in all other facets of life where students will be faced with making decisions based on preconceived stories and standing up for themself. 

Because students from all majors will FYC, I believe there is value in giving students freedom regarding the types of stories they are interested in analyzing. Students are free to analyze stories regarding healthcare, politics, history, or avenues that lie with their professional careers. I also aim to give students experience researching in hopes of ensuring students understand the importance of utilizing credible sources and the research process as a whole. 

Creating an Empathetic Classroom 

In addition to creating a practical curriculum that prepares students for their careers, in academia and beyond, I believe it is important to create an empathetic classroom. Not only do I believe empathy is important in ensuring student success by recognizing what each and every student’s needs, I hope that by fostering an empathetic relationship with my students, my students will be more likely to try new things and be open to failure. I believe this core principal fulfills two stages of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: safety and security and love and belonging, as I am fulfilling creating a safe and loving environment where students feel safe to learn and potentially fail without judgement. 

In order to accomplish this, I need to ensure that I am not only empathetic to my students, but my students are empathetic to each other. From the very first day, I plan to integrate many opportunities for students to talk and work with one another. I would like students to discuss how material pops up in their own lives, hopefully allowing students to experience new perspectives and create relationships with one another. By allowing students to create these relationships, my hope is students will develop empathy with one another and create a space where students feel more comfortable participating in classroom discussion. 

I also plan to integrate empathy by being open to my students’ needs in terms of attendance and late work, assessment, and methods of teaching. I want to ensure students know that they can always reach out to me if something has occurred in their lives preventing them from submitting assignments or attending class, or if they need additional help understanding material. While I will not pass students who never come to class or submit work, I believe it is important to understand that students are often experiencing their own personal hardships outside of class and to find ways to meet students where they are and help them succeed.  

Improving Student’s Confidence with Low-Stakes Work & Revision

One of my primary goals for the end of the semester is for students to leave my classroom feeling more confident in their writing abilities. Writing is a skill found in every profession, so while I understand that not every student is going to come into and leave my classroom passionate about writing, I hope that they will feel better prepared to write in a variety of forms and rhetorical situations. I believe this core principal fulfills a variety of categories in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, such as "safety and belonging" and "self-esteem," as I am again giving students experiences that will hopefully raise their confidence, as well as creating a safe space where students are allowed to fail in order to learn. 

I believe the best way to build students' confidence in their writing ability is by having students write often, in various forms and situations, and in a low-stakes setting. I plan to begin each class with free-writing, where students will have the opportunity to brainstorm topics for their major assignments. Students will also have weekly assignments, such as peer reviewed discussion board posts, in which case students will get to practice material in a low-stakes enviornment and gain feedback prior to major assignment submission. 

In addition to implementing low-stakes writing exercises to increase students’ confidence in their writing ability, I plan to integrate revision via a End-of-Semester Revision and Reflected Memo, teaching students that their first draft does not have to be perfect, and that it is okay to reflect and edit their work later on. While working as a writing assistant at Kennesaw State University, I have met many students who feared putting words on the page as they believed their first draft had to be their final. While many first drafts can become the final draft in various rhetorical situations, I believe it is important to teach students that revision is a normal part of the writing process. 

Works Cited

Adler-Kassner, Linda and Elizabeth Wardle. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, Utah State University Press, 2015.

Alderfer, Clayton P. "An empirical test of a new theory of human needs." Organizational behavior and human performance 4.2 (1969): 142-175.

Maslow, Abraham H. "A Dynamic Theory of Human Motivation." (1958).

Maslow, Abraham Harold. "A theory of human motivation." Psychological review 50.4 (1943): 370

Trivedi, Anjanaben J., and Amit Mehta. "Maslow’s hierarchy of needs-theory of human motivation." International Journal of Research in all Subjects in Multi Languages 7.6 (2019): 38-41.

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