Teaching Philosophy

About Professor Will McTarsney

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou

Hi! my name is Will McTarsney - University Instructor. I subscribe to constructivism and student-centered approaches which drive choice-driven, creative team oriented working environments. My students are enthusiastic with the simulations that I present in my classroom where they can engage in real-world experiences in developing websites and constructing digital art. I am often regarded as a 'new age' instructor because I believe in bringing in what is relevant and current in the industry into the classroom along with assessment materials which places students in situations where they need to work together to resolve creative problems. An example include: transforming the classroom into a real-life working environment where the students develop websites in a creative team.

My personal learning philosophy combines constructivism and student-centered instructional approaches into a choice-driven learning environment. Choice-based learning has shown to be the most effective approach for art education because it combines components of both constructivism and student-centered learning practices and allows the students to problem solve as a professional often does in the real world (Hathaway, 2008).

It is my belief that students should be able to construct knowledge based on what they already know because it allows them to grow and gain new knowledge that has some sense of relevance to them. Students should be able to create strong individual skills rather than just regurgitating information from the teacher in old fashioned brick and mortar learning approaches (Hathaway, 2008). Information is useless to my students unless they are able to process the ideas and use the ideas that they gained in a practical, real-world scenario.