My Teaching Philosophy

New knowledge has always been my idea of an enjoyable time, both giving and receiving. I often find myself getting excited while sharing with my friends, family, or peers about some new information I have come upon. In my clinical setting, my supervisors and peers will request that I teach our patients on diverse topics because our other patients make frequent mention of how much they have learned on each of their visits. While I am a wound care specialist, I do not limit my teaching to wounds and their care. I feel that I have approximately 45 minutes to make my patient a better advocate for themselves, and the way to do that is to empower them through knowledge. I hold this same urgency in teaching the students who pass through my clinic.  

Through my experience, teachers should often use schema theory to allow better understanding and storage of concepts (University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, 2025). I notice that students and patients tend to understand concepts more clearly if I relate the topic through an analogy that is experienced by everyone (Loveless, 2022). Once the basic analogy is acknowledged and understood, I then relate the actual details to the various parts of the analogy. I liken it to sculpting. The basic shape of the sculpture is made first, and as each part is discussed, the learner and I begin adding the details until a completed work is revealed. The learner is encouraged to ask questions about each part as we work to understand the topic. Once they have broadened their understanding, I have the learner explain to me what they have just learned and think about earlier situations when this information might have been helpful. In the case of a student nurse, I encourage them to frame the topic in understanding a patient’s treatment or education (Loveless, 2022). These actions are all present in Gagné’s Conditions of Learning Theory (University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, 2025).

My teaching philosophy inspires me to cultivate a mentor/mentee relationship between teacher and student. We were all beginners once, and as such, I position myself to each student as a mentor versus an authority. I want to be seen as someone who has learned about something truly fascinating and wants to share that knowledge with everyone. This helps to eradicate the fear of authority, or intimidation, due to feeling unknowledgeable or incompetent. The learning theory that best embodies my approach is the humanistic learning theory. According to the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing (2025), the humanism learning theory focuses on the individual student’s emotional well-being while learning. Therefore, it is my goal to encourage engagement through my excitement for a topic, which then helps propel students to be self-motivated to further their own development and better understanding of an area of study. This self-discovery helps students achieve a sense of fulfillment (University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, 2025).

By introducing topics in a humorous or exciting way, I intend to encourage curiosity and desire that compels my students to push deeper into learned topics. Utilizing Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction, I find that my natural teaching style is to first give a humorous or exciting anecdote or description of a topic, then once I see that the student is interested in what I am conveying, I engage them by giving more details and asking about experiences they might have had that relate to the current discussion (Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2020). My goal for my students is to be excited by what they are learning and embrace it as new knowledge. Because I am truly excited by the topics I present to them, my students almost always begin to get excited as well by making connections with what I am explaining to them and situations they have experienced with patients or in the classroom.

I see positive examples of retained information when I have students teach each other about a researched topic or share information they were able to gather that supports the topic that was taught. For example, in my clinic, the students usually arrive in pairs. I give each of them a list of various wound products. During the day, I will teach each one about a specific product. We discuss interesting facts that make the products beneficial. As the day progresses, I will either have them teach a patient about the product or teach their peer about the product. The teach-back method is well recognized as a method to educate patients, but research has shown it is also effective in staff and student training ​(Sleiman et al., 2022). If a student can successfully convey the information they have learned throughout the day, I see that as a successful rotation.

As a child of a librarian, I spent many hours entertaining myself amongst the rows of books while my mother worked. My love for learning was nurtured there. With the unprecedented availability of resources, my search for new knowledge and self-growth is limitless. Not only do I continue to devour books and research articles found online from sources such as the TWU library, but I have also joined organizations such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA) that promote the further study of educational methods and evaluation, and allow for interaction with my peers. Once I can do so, I also intend to participate in any committees at my learning institution and at the government level that will focus on a continued improvement process to ensure the curriculum and teaching methods being utilized are the most up-to-date, sound, and beneficial to the students.

References

Loveless, B. (2022). A complete guide to schema theory and its role in education. Education Corner. https://www.educationcorner.com/schema-theory/#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20if%20students%20have,taught%20what%20a%20key%20is!

Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2020). Gagné’s nine events of instruction. Northern Illinois University. https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/gagnes-nine-events-of-instruction.shtml

Sleiman, A. A., Gravina, N. E., & Portillo, D. (2022). An evaluation of the teach‐back method for training new skills. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 56(1), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.966

University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. (2025). Learning and instructional theories. University of Pittsburgh. https://www.nursing.pitt.edu/research/hubs/nursing-education/learning-instructional-theories#:~:text=Theory%20names%20Description/definition%201.%20CONSTRUCTIVISM%20%E2%80%93%20Learning,topic%20through%20their%20own%20experiences%20and%20reflections.