About me

Welcome!

This space is an effort to make my own teaching practice and learning process more transparent. As an English language teacher trainer, I seek to foster learner autonomy, demonstrate reflective and shared practice, allow openness of dialogue from various perspectives, take risks, set productive routines, and employ purposeful decision making. To this end, I share most of what I do as an educator and learner using Obsidian as a personal knowledge management site where I publish to GitHub – bnleez1/public-vault: This public vault is for sharing educational resources to the masses.. This includes open courseware and related content related to my teaching practice and learning. If you would like to become a part of the conversation and share what you do in the classroom, contact me via Twitter (@bnleez).

BIO

I’m a full professor in EFL teacher training and a researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes with an interest in transparent professional learning. I hold a PhD in education with a specialization in instructional and curricular leadership and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in instruction and curriculum using technology. I produce an educational podcast at benjaminlstewart.net that focuses on making his own teaching and learning more transparent.

Educational Philosophy

My educational philosophy is to facilitate learners in becoming more apt to form valid, reliable, and unbiased arguments, provide innovative solutions to real-life problems, make decisions that resolve cognitive conflict by developing understandings through a difference of opinion or perspective, and create innovative ways of communicating with others. My role is to move learners from being dependent, to independent, to interdependent individuals who are not afraid to take chances, share their successes and failures with others, and are concerned for the well-being of not only themselves but for others as well. My goal is to help others become more daring, sharing, and caring individuals.

Assumptions

The assumptions that I have about education certainly don’t apply to everyone, but feel that it does apply to enough educators, trainers, and coaches (including myself) that it warrants reflection that underpins my own educational philosophy.

  • My natural tendency is to shy away from any formal planning process; yet, I find that using Notion facilitates the process, allowing me to get the most out of how I approach my teaching and learning practice.
  • I put more thought into my own teaching and learning practice if I am more transparent and willing to share. I feel it has more purpose.
  • I remind myself to take my teaching practice serious but not personal.

Much of what I share via this website was inspired by Wiley’s (2016) talk, High Impact Practices for Integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) into University Courses.

ELT Cast

Recommendations

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