How to prepare students for learning by sharing your teaching philosophy

(Simple Syllabus Series Part 1 of 3)

Jun 27, 2024

Hi,

Welcome to this week's edition of Course Builder's Corner. Today, we begin a three-part series on creating a course syllabus.

You might think a syllabus would consist of nothing but a list of what you'll cover in your course.

But a syllabus's real purpose is to make students feel safe learning from you. In this series, we'll uncover how to use the syllabus to create this feeling of safety.

Let's get to the first step: discovering your teaching philosophy.

Rodney

In 1971, the British actor Michael Cain was watching TV with his roommate when he saw a commercial that would change his life.

The commercial featured footage from Brazil and a beautiful woman. He told his roommate, "That's the woman for me." The next day, he was ready to book a plane to Brazil to find her.

But when he told another friend about his plans, Caine decided to stay home.

His friend informed him that the girl was not Brazilian. She was Indian and lived nearby. A little while later, the actor started dating her, and they eventually got married.

Caine could have mistakenly flown halfway around the world due to a faulty expectation - that the actors in a commercial live in the commercial's setting.

We've all had faulty expectations from time to time, and our students are the same. Like Caine, they may expect one thing when reality is very different. So, what can we do as instructors to ensure that expectations in our courses are clear? One strategy is the simple syllabus.

This will be the first of three articles covering the elements of a simple syllabus.

Over the series, we'll discuss

The philosophy of the teacher
Overview of learning
The instructor's bio

Let's start with the first element.

1. The philosophy of the teacher

How will you guide me?

How will you treat me?

These are two unspoken questions on your students' minds. Your answer to those questions is your teaching philosophy.

Your philosophy is the set of principles that guide how you teach others.

It says why you teach the way you teach. It gives coherence to what might seem like a disconnected set of strategies.

Even though students rarely ask for your teaching philosophy, their ears perk up when you describe it.

Why?

A philosophy of anything suggests you've deeply reflected on the issues at hand. People are attracted to thoughtfulness of this kind. They like a person with a plan but they like even more a person with a plan that makes sense.

They want reasons to believe you've found a great way to instruct them, and your philosophy of teaching provides those reasons.

But you may not have considered something as esoteric as your teaching philosophy. So, how can you create it?

In my mind, we uncover it rather than pull it out of thin air.

Here's the easiest way I've found to uncover your teaching philosophy.

List the teaching strategies you use in your course.
Then ask yourself, "What would I have to believe to consider these strategies a good idea?" Answer by listing ideas without judgment. Don't worry if your ideas seem bland or ordinary. So many practical ideas don't make headlines but are still useful.
Organize the ideas into clumps. Then, give each clump a name. These names are categories for your ideas.

Here's what it looked like when I did this exercise for a coaching course I run.

The strategies I use:

Daily assignments
Daily feedback from an instructor
Daily feedback from students
Rest days
Live demonstrations followed by Q&A
Thin-slice observations
Detailed onboarding process
Groups
Ask Us section of the forum
Insights from Assignments section of the forum

What would I have to believe to use these strategies?

That people learn faster when they get feedback than when they don't.
That peer feedback is valuable.
That giving feedback to peers builds your own skill
That you can learn as much from your own mistakes as the mistakes of others.
People need to sleep in between work periods to cement in learning (why we do a little each day)
There's no need to create assignments just to fill a schedule (why we have rest days)
People learn a lot from observing a skill performed, especially if they can ask questions after (why we have live demos)
People learn even more from observing a tiny slice of a skill if the observation is structured well
Many people feel more comfortable and are more active in small groups (why we break the class into groups of 6-8 students)

Here are the ideas put in categories

Feedback (ideas 1, 2, 3 and 4)
Workload (ideas 5 and 6)
Observations (ideas 7 and 8)
Small groups (idea 9)

The categories you uncover are elements of your teaching philosophy.

Now, decide which three items from that list you feel are the most important to share. Then, write out your explanations.

Here's what that looks like for "Feedback," which I'm calling "Frequent Feedback." (Yes, always give your principles a name.)

Frequent Feedback

In this course, you work every day and receive feedback every day. This way, you make small daily errors and receive small, easy-to-fix corrections. You also get a little hit of dopamine each day since you also do things right.

Not all feedback comes from the instructor; you get feedback from your peers, and you give feedback, too.

As a result, you develop skills and the confidence that comes from helping others improve at the skill.

For each category, you can write out why it's a part of your teaching philosophy, as I've done above for feedback.

Since you made the list of categories after looking at your strategy list, that means you have examples of each principle already at hand, so the writing will flow.

Now, let's look at one mistake to avoid.

Whatever you do, avoid sharing too many ideas in the philosophy section.

Even if you somehow discover 10 principles that underlie your teaching, it would be best not to share all of them.

Boil the list down to the top three so students don't get overwhelmed with the ideas.

Let's give them a good feeling as they read the rest of your syllabus.

At this point, you have your teaching philosophy and avoided the mistake of sharing too much information. In the next issue, you'll learn an engaging way to share your learning plan.

For now, let me know what questions you have about creating the teaching philosophy section of the syllabus.

And if you're feeling brave, why not share your results from the exercise above?

Before you go, you may want to check out any of the following:

The Atomic Course Blueprint- Want to create a course without the usual overwhelm? Try creating a tiny course. Find out more here.

iPARA: How to organize your digital life for action- Is digital disorganization keeping you from reaching your goals? What if just four folders could let you not just stay organized but actually get things done? See for yourself here.

That’s it for this week.