User

I am a teacher educator because I want to change the world. While I realize what I hope to accomplish is limited, I know education is where I can have the greatest impact. I want my students to understand that the professional world they will inhabit, the university, is not immutable. As future teachers, they can make a difference and their classrooms can be healthy, supportive environments in which their own students can grow and learn.

I wholeheartedly endorse what the Russian educational psychologist L.S.Vygotsky said about learning -- it is a socially constructed. Thus, my students need opportunities to collaborate with each other, as well as with me, to learn and gain expertise about the act of teaching. To be effective teachers, my students must have the opportunity to take responsibility for becoming life-long learners. This means sharing with others what they learn about teaching and realizing all the things that they have not yet discovered. I want my students to become empowered by their own learning and development as teachers. I create situations where students can take charge for what they learn and how it applies in their classrooms.

In summary, I want students to realize that they do not teach subjects but rather people. My goal is to teach the whole person, i.e., the cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions of the human being. As members of that community, students are responsible not only to themselves, but to the other members of the community, including me.