My Teaching Philosophy: From Academically Adrift to a Problem-Based Method and P.E.R.M.A.
Shane M. McCarty
The purpose of education is complex, context specific and debatable[i]. I am writing to articulate my philosophy about education – from my prior experiences and research in positive psychology – and my mission to change our current education system by promoting well-being and happiness with effective teaching and make-a-difference research.
Developing Purpose
As the Dalai Lama said, “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”[ii] Seligman proposes a meaningful life of happiness requires positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement (i.e., P.E.R.M.A.)[iii]. Our challenge as educators is to meet this framework and specific P.E.R.M.A. metrics. The purpose of education is not to teach or learn, per se. Teaching and learning are simply the processes by which we educate, and education is a process for increasing students’ well-being and meaning through knowledge.
In the current state of our education system, we are not meeting our goals. Has this system created a river of aimlessly wandering students? Arum and Roksa think so and suggest our education system has gone “academically adrift”.[iv]. Their research shows 45% of students do not show measurable gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills after two years of college. These skills are taught to increase employability and earning power and students are not gaining those skills; therefore, we need a new learning approach (i.e., problem-based learning) and lens (i.e., P.E.R.M.A. outcomes).
A Paradigm Shift to Happiness
Positive psychologists have shown financial stability directly increases happiness up to $75,000, and then other factors become more important.[v] Yet, our education system continues to perpetuate this financial perspective by using employability and earning power as the metrics for evaluating graduating seniors and alumni.[vi] First we must shift our outcome from maximizing economic profit to maximizing our happiness index. Then, we must ask: Do we need an education to be happy or do we need happiness for education? As Sir Ken Robinson said, “When we went to school, we were kept there with a story that if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree, you would have a job.”[vii] We believed that happiness came after education. However, I believe the five factors (P.E.R.M.A.) of happiness come first and can guide education in the classroom to facilitate optimal learning. For happiness and successful education, we must engage students, facilitate relationships among others, provide meaningful content and purpose to their lives, and reflect back their own successes and achievements.
Cultivating Happily Educated Students
What if students believed the skills and learning outcomes were meaningful instead of meaningless for each of their classes? Problem-based learning[viii], which provides real-world problems for students to solve, has the potential to provide the meaning and knowledge and it meets the P.E.R.M.A. framework. My strategy as an educator is simple: to provide students with a meaningful challenge that requires them to solve complex problems creatively and collaboratively for the purpose of facilitating well-being for others. Students engage one another in creative and new ways to meet a meaningful challenge. This is the core of my philosophy as an educator – I want to instill purpose into my students’ lives so that they can learn effectively.
How Will I Teach with Purpose?
My teaching is grounded in a few fundamental beliefs: 1) intelligence is malleable, 2) active learning and problem-based learning are ideal teaching strategies, and 3) theory must inform practice and vise versa. My teaching is grounded in the belief all students are capable of learning, because intelligence is not fixed. Dweck demonstrated that the belief in the malleability of intelligence (i.e., a learning/growth goal-orientation) increased students’ persistence and self-efficacy in the future.[ix] The world is facing real problems that require complex, creative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative thinking. I will use real-world problems as motivators to learn/develop the skills necessary to solve them successfully.
For example, for the past year, I have mentored five undergraduate research assistants as facilitators of a thirty-person curriculum development team. They were provided: a real-world issue, bullying in middle schools; a specific goal, to prevent bullying; a strategy, use a proactive and positive approach to teach the importance of caring; knowledge, the actively caring for people (AC4P) principles of behavioral science. Of the thirty research assistants from the Center for Applied Behavior Systems (CABS), three volunteers academically gained nothing (i.e., no grade or class requirement), but they lead AC4P efforts for three hours per week of lesson planning to deliver at 7:30am to students. This pedagogy of empowerment, purpose, and collaboration is our model for AC4P teaching.
Finally, I will utilize my experiences as a practitioner to inform my classroom teaching. My research focuses on increasing individuals’ intentionality, quality of friendships, and moral courage for the purpose of developing leaders that will create AC4P cultures worldwide.
Closing Remarks
Without experience teaching a collegiate course of my own, I cannot share evidence of my personal success as a classroom teacher. I don’t have strategies, new teaching ideas, or trial-and-error experiences as feedback for future performances. After keynoting three conferences, delivering nine professional presentations at five different national conferences, teaching hundreds of workshop participants, and guest lecturing seven times, I have developed values to guide my future decision-making strategies for effective teaching.
From elementary education to college, I have observed many teachers follow the prescribed directions for effective teaching. They have a structured lesson plan, creative ideas for learning, and good content, but they, in general, remain academically adrift due to a faulty system. Through research and reflective teaching, I intend to educate with the mission to provide purpose to our students. With purpose, all things are possible, including education and happiness.
[i] Renner, J.W. & Marek, E.A. (2006). An educational theory base for science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27(3), 241-246.
[ii] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/purpose.html
[iii] Seligman, M. E.P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Free Press.
[iv] Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
[v] Luscombe, B. (2010, September 6). Do we need $75,000 a year to be happy? Time.
[vi] Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech ranks fifth nationally in starting salaries of graduates from FBS schools; ACC ranked first among FBS conferences. Retrieved from: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2011/09/093011-unirel-accsalaries.html
[vii] Robinson, K. (2010). Changing Education Paradigms. RSA Animate. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
[viii] Albanese, M. & Mitchell, S. (1993). Problem-based learning: A review of literature on its outcomes and implementation. Academic Medicine, 68(1), 52-81.
[ix] Dweck, C.S. (2007). Mindset: The Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.
The purpose of education is complex, context specific and debatable[i]. I am writing to articulate my philosophy about education – from my prior experiences and research in positive psychology – and my mission to change our current education system by promoting well-being and happiness with effective teaching and make-a-difference research.
Developing Purpose
As the Dalai Lama said, “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”[ii] Seligman proposes a meaningful life of happiness requires positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement (i.e., P.E.R.M.A.)[iii]. Our challenge as educators is to meet this framework and specific P.E.R.M.A. metrics. The purpose of education is not to teach or learn, per se. Teaching and learning are simply the processes by which we educate, and education is a process for increasing students’ well-being and meaning through knowledge.
In the current state of our education system, we are not meeting our goals. Has this system created a river of aimlessly wandering students? Arum and Roksa think so and suggest our education system has gone “academically adrift”.[iv]. Their research shows 45% of students do not show measurable gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills after two years of college. These skills are taught to increase employability and earning power and students are not gaining those skills; therefore, we need a new learning approach (i.e., problem-based learning) and lens (i.e., P.E.R.M.A. outcomes).
A Paradigm Shift to Happiness
Positive psychologists have shown financial stability directly increases happiness up to $75,000, and then other factors become more important.[v] Yet, our education system continues to perpetuate this financial perspective by using employability and earning power as the metrics for evaluating graduating seniors and alumni.[vi] First we must shift our outcome from maximizing economic profit to maximizing our happiness index. Then, we must ask: Do we need an education to be happy or do we need happiness for education? As Sir Ken Robinson said, “When we went to school, we were kept there with a story that if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree, you would have a job.”[vii] We believed that happiness came after education. However, I believe the five factors (P.E.R.M.A.) of happiness come first and can guide education in the classroom to facilitate optimal learning. For happiness and successful education, we must engage students, facilitate relationships among others, provide meaningful content and purpose to their lives, and reflect back their own successes and achievements.
Cultivating Happily Educated Students
What if students believed the skills and learning outcomes were meaningful instead of meaningless for each of their classes? Problem-based learning[viii], which provides real-world problems for students to solve, has the potential to provide the meaning and knowledge and it meets the P.E.R.M.A. framework. My strategy as an educator is simple: to provide students with a meaningful challenge that requires them to solve complex problems creatively and collaboratively for the purpose of facilitating well-being for others. Students engage one another in creative and new ways to meet a meaningful challenge. This is the core of my philosophy as an educator – I want to instill purpose into my students’ lives so that they can learn effectively.
How Will I Teach with Purpose?
My teaching is grounded in a few fundamental beliefs: 1) intelligence is malleable, 2) active learning and problem-based learning are ideal teaching strategies, and 3) theory must inform practice and vise versa. My teaching is grounded in the belief all students are capable of learning, because intelligence is not fixed. Dweck demonstrated that the belief in the malleability of intelligence (i.e., a learning/growth goal-orientation) increased students’ persistence and self-efficacy in the future.[ix] The world is facing real problems that require complex, creative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative thinking. I will use real-world problems as motivators to learn/develop the skills necessary to solve them successfully.
For example, for the past year, I have mentored five undergraduate research assistants as facilitators of a thirty-person curriculum development team. They were provided: a real-world issue, bullying in middle schools; a specific goal, to prevent bullying; a strategy, use a proactive and positive approach to teach the importance of caring; knowledge, the actively caring for people (AC4P) principles of behavioral science. Of the thirty research assistants from the Center for Applied Behavior Systems (CABS), three volunteers academically gained nothing (i.e., no grade or class requirement), but they lead AC4P efforts for three hours per week of lesson planning to deliver at 7:30am to students. This pedagogy of empowerment, purpose, and collaboration is our model for AC4P teaching.
Finally, I will utilize my experiences as a practitioner to inform my classroom teaching. My research focuses on increasing individuals’ intentionality, quality of friendships, and moral courage for the purpose of developing leaders that will create AC4P cultures worldwide.
Closing Remarks
Without experience teaching a collegiate course of my own, I cannot share evidence of my personal success as a classroom teacher. I don’t have strategies, new teaching ideas, or trial-and-error experiences as feedback for future performances. After keynoting three conferences, delivering nine professional presentations at five different national conferences, teaching hundreds of workshop participants, and guest lecturing seven times, I have developed values to guide my future decision-making strategies for effective teaching.
From elementary education to college, I have observed many teachers follow the prescribed directions for effective teaching. They have a structured lesson plan, creative ideas for learning, and good content, but they, in general, remain academically adrift due to a faulty system. Through research and reflective teaching, I intend to educate with the mission to provide purpose to our students. With purpose, all things are possible, including education and happiness.
[i] Renner, J.W. & Marek, E.A. (2006). An educational theory base for science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27(3), 241-246.
[ii] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/purpose.html
[iii] Seligman, M. E.P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Free Press.
[iv] Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
[v] Luscombe, B. (2010, September 6). Do we need $75,000 a year to be happy? Time.
[vi] Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech ranks fifth nationally in starting salaries of graduates from FBS schools; ACC ranked first among FBS conferences. Retrieved from: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2011/09/093011-unirel-accsalaries.html
[vii] Robinson, K. (2010). Changing Education Paradigms. RSA Animate. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
[viii] Albanese, M. & Mitchell, S. (1993). Problem-based learning: A review of literature on its outcomes and implementation. Academic Medicine, 68(1), 52-81.
[ix] Dweck, C.S. (2007). Mindset: The Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.