2018 Teaching Initiative Award Winner

Sandra L. Osorio, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in Education, Curriculum & Instruction- Language & Literacy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2013)
Assistant Professor, School of Teaching and Learning

Teaching Philosophy

"I am for the pedagogy of curiosity. . . the pedagogy of question, and not the answer"—Paulo Freire.

The three most valuable methods that I bring to my teaching practices are

Curiosity because it is important to want to know more about the content or topic being covered in order to be engaged and lead to learning.

Flexibility because in reality you never know what is going to happen in the classroom day to day. You have to get to know your students and adjust your teaching to best meet their needs which means that the plans you made for the day might just have to go out the window.

Learner stance because it is important to enter the classroom, not as the person that holds all the knowledge but as someone that is also there to learn.While I may know the content, there are always things for me to learn from my students and I therefore must have a learner stance.

photo of Sandra Osorio — “... most rewarding aspect of teaching for me is realizing what I am doing in the classroom, impacts the lives of children. It's amazing to see how students take the content they learned in class and take it to a new place you would have never imagined!”