High School teachers epistemological beliefs.

Abstract

In my experience, teachers can become a motivation or a disappointment to students. The best teachers I have had, so far, were very committed to their work. They were prepared, responsible, kind and helpful in all senses. On the other hand, my worst teachers were passive, missed classes; they had a bad attitude in class and they thought that they were omniscient. Those actions that I can remember from my teachers, the bad and good ones, have influenced most of what I am today as a teacher, they taught me how I should and should not behave, and the way I may leave a positive mark on my students. However, not only our behavior affects our students but also the way we think they learn, or how knowledge is acquired. Most of the time, the way we teach reflects what we believe about acquisition of new information, for example; when we choose the activities to be done in class we believe those are the best for our students. All educational levels are important, from primary school to university. Each one of them provides us with important knowledge useful for the following stage of our education. However, university is an important stage due to the fact that students focus on something that they will probably do for the rest of their lives. However, one of the complaints made by university teachers is that students have not been taught well enough previously, so have difficulties at the University level.