Author: Alena Prikhidko

Teaching Philosophy of Alena Prikhidko

Counselor education requires a teacher to provide instruction in both theory and practice, which are intertwined and influence one another. When learning about a counseling theory, one needs to be able to use the new knowledge to grasp the reality of implementation of particular counseling strategies and techniques. Therefore, I see my responsibilities in creating a learning environment that will provide students with the opportunity to implement new knowledge into practice. I do this through experiential learning, which is related to learning through involvement and focused on authentic understanding in the classroom (Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013).

I align with Constructivist pedagogy, in which the truth is not definite, and the learner is highly influenced by the social context. Therefore, the student is seen as an active participant in the pedagogical dialogue, who builds upon existing knowledge and develops new skills in collaboration with the teacher. I share with my students that we all have 100% of the responsibility for what will happen in the classroom as we influence one another through our cognitive and emotional states. However, as an instructor, I model appropriate attitudes and behavior in the face-to-face or online learning environment.

I agree with McCaughan, Binkley, Wilde, and Allen (2013, p. 96), who stated that students being “the experts of their learning is reflective of the postmodern perspective in counseling practice. When taking a postmodern approach to counseling, practitioners refrain from the role of an expert so clients may be empowered to direct their success”. Constructivists view learning as a dialogue, which is in contrast to a positivist teaching approach in which the teacher is seen as a sender and the student as a passive recipient of the information, resulting in a monologue. In a dialogue, the teacher and students engage in transactional communication where both share and receive information. This type of teaching and learning encompasses several processes that I believe are pivotal to student learning (i.e., regular feedback, active implementation, empowerment, personalization of knowledge).

Regular feedback encompasses the teacher’s reflections of what students have completed in a classroom or have written in a paper that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the performance through supportive comments, along with grading rubrics, which give precise instruction about the grading scale. Active implementation of knowledge is connected with the activities students engage in, practicing what they have learned through individual, small, or large group exercises. The rationale for this approach is related to how people store new information. “We have to be an active participant in the learning process— by interpreting, connecting, interrelating, and elaborating, not simply recording” (Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013, p. 420)

I also believe that personal responsibility empowers students and motivates them more than the absence of liability. Therefore, I implement leadership activities when a student is teaching part of a class (giving presentations during class) using a plan which we develop in collaboration. The most remarkable feature of student-leaders in the classroom is that as a teacher, I continually learn from my students and communicate to them that they each have something unique to offer. This interactive learning process is one of the best illustrations of the constructive pedagogy perspective, as it shows how new knowledge is constructed for all participants in the learning process. Personalization of learning means making the learning material personal through looking at it in regards to one’s life and interests. I have noticed that the more a student can attach the concept to his life, the better he remembers it. Moreover, if a class project can be further used for his benefit, the student may become more motivated to participate in the project and produce outstanding work.

My teaching philosophy aligns with Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning tasks. I strive to use all six domains of learning when creating a syllabus (Anderson, Krathwohl, Airasian, Cruikshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths, & Wittrock, 2001). I believe that some of the learning tasks are especially important for counselors-in-training, including applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. When a counselor is working with a client, he needs to be able to use a concept in a new situation of unprompted use of an abstraction and apply what was learned in the classroom or the workplace (i.e., using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] to make a diagnosis or implementing the American Counseling Association [ACA] Code of Ethics Code to make an ethical decision). I would achieve the goal of teaching students to use the knowledge they obtain through collaborative learning or creating a process – make a role play with a scenario. Analyzing is another important skill to be learned. It pertains to separating material or concepts into parts so that its organizational structure may be understood along with distinguishing between facts and inferences. For example, a counselor educator might have to recognize logical fallacies in a client’s reasoning or gather information from a department and selects the required tasks for training. I would achieve the goal of teaching students to analyze through debates and have discussions to question what happened.

Evaluating reflects one’s ability to make judgments about the value of ideas or materials (i.e., selecting the most efficient solution or hire the most qualified candidate). This task is pivotal in the counseling profession, as practitioners constantly need to evaluate the mental state of their clients. Students can learn evaluation procedures through the use of surveys, tests, and case studies, which they use to conduct evaluations.

Creativity helps a student build a structure or pattern from diverse elements and put parts together to form a whole, with an emphasis on creating new meaning or structure. Counselors are continuously planning interventions to use in their work with clients. Therefore, students need to integrate training from several sources to solve a problem. I would facilitate the creating learning strategies through assignment such as creating a new model and writing an essay. I would also include group work to give students the opportunity to brainstorm together.

I also focus on my students’ learning styles and use this information to engage them into the learning process. Additionally, I devote attention to the self-managed learning process that occurs beyond the formal educational setting. I believe that it is imperative to embrace professional ethical codes such ACA (2014) Code of Ethics, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT, 2015) Code of Ethics. It is also important to integrate professional standards (i.e., Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP] 2016 standards). As a counselor educator, I will serve as a gatekeeper for the counseling profession; and therefore, it is my responsibility to ensure that students are becoming reliable, knowledgeable, professional, and competent counselors.

References:

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (2015). AAMFT code of ethics. Retrieved from http://www.aamft.org/resources/lrm_plan/ethics/ethicscode2001.asp

American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA code of ethics. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/ethics/code-of-ethics-resources

Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R., Raths, J., Wittrock, M. C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon

Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 417–444. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143823

Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2016). CACREP standards. Retrieved from http://www.cacrep.org/for-programs/2016-cacrep-standards/

McCaughan, A.M., Binkley, E. E., Wilde, B. J., Parmanand, S. P., & Allen, V. B. (2013). Observing the development of constructivist pedagogy in one counselor education doctoral cohort: A single case design. The Practitioner Scholar: Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology, 1, 95-107