This is one of those things that scares people. You expect me to teach? Doesn’t that mean I have to get up in front of people? Won’t that be embarrassing if I’m wrong? I don’t want to look stupid. Isn’t there an easier way?
Let me start by answering that last question. Yes. You could fail. It’s easier.
Maybe you disagree with me, but I think that sounds bad. I don’t like failing. I’m willing to look a little foolish if it means I don’t fail. Maybe your different. Having said that I have never had to get up in front of people or embarrasses myself in order to get the most out of teaching.
So how do you teach without getting in front of people and embarrassing yourself?
This one is quite easy. You teach someone who doesn’t know and doesn’t really care about the material. Some people will teach their pet’s. Others will teach their parents. Some of you have little baby’s and you will teach them. Wow. That was your biggest problem and I fixed it in less than a paragraph.
Now that Your Biggest Objection is Solved…
But when you are actually teaching what do you do? Don’t you need a teaching degree to be effective at teaching? Isn’t it important to follow proper form? What if I teach it wrong? Should I not strive to be the best teacher I can be?
The answer to all of these is no. They don’t matter.
Unless your being paid to tutor someone, you have no reason to care if you’re a good teacher. Don’t forget Law 11 of learning. Focus on what will be used. Unless your going to be a teacher you have no reason or care on the proper from of teaching. Don’t worry if your effective. Remember your teaching your dog or baby. This is for you, not them.
Having said that you still want to know how to get the most learning out of your teaching. So, here are 3 quick tips on how to get the most learning out of your teaching.
1) Teach without the book.
This is important because you will not be tested with the book. That is what this is. A test. You are testing yourself. You need to at least have the material memorized before you try and teach it. But don’t just memorize what is in the book. That will not help you. You need to memorize it in your won words.
Sit down with the book and your notes and really learn them. When you feel ready, go to step 2.
2) Make your outline
There are many ways to do this. Some people use PowerPoint or some other presentation software. This can work but I find it takes a bit to long. Personally I just use a piece of paper. I write down the main ideas and any important parts that connect with it. Then I move to the next part.
I repeat this until I have everything I want to talk about, and this part is key, in my own words. Not how it was written in the book or my notes. If you did a good job of this in your notes, you can always just change your sentence structure. For example: “your body needs oxygen in order to make ATP in the mitochondria,” could become “the mitochondria need oxygen in order to make ATP.”
OK so you have the outline so you can really start on step two.
Yeah this is the hard step. But having that much information on a page is just too much of a Que for you to get a lot out of teaching. People start just reading from the page, instead of teaching. You need to simplify what you have until it’s not a complete sentence, it’s just a couple of words to cue you. So, the sentience above might become “oxygen and mitochondria.”
That gives you enough to trigger your memory but not enough to tell you exactly what to say. Having said that I oversimplified that a lot and would have a lot more to say just from the first sentence. Once you have done this you are ready to move on to step three. Be careful this step is something you do as you are teaching.
3) Create and/or Answer Questions as you Teach
This one seems to confuse people so let me explain. One of the best parts about teaching what your learning, is you will have people ask questions about what you are going over. These questions force you to go outside what you prepared, ideally, on something you don’t know as well.
So how to get the most out of this little opportunity.
For starters remember you are not trying to be a great teacher. Your trying to learn. A great teacher would go look it up. Don’t do that. Give it your best guess, first. Then say, but let’s look it up to make sure. Then look it up.
This is very important because a lot of times people will make their memory the wrong way. Instead of going I thought it was A when really it was B, they think it is A but aren’t sure then look it up and go I knew it was B. If you verbalize the answer this tends not to happen.
What if…
But what if you are teaching your dog or your baby? They can’t ask you a question. What do you do then?
This is were you need to create your own questions as you are teaching. This takes some practice but is worth it. Learn to be thinking, “is what I’m saying clear? Does this interact with something I have already talked about? How does this fit into the bigger picture? Are there any details I’m missing?” and other questions like that. Then answer them as described above.
I will admit this is not as good as teaching people in your class who will know good questions to ask but it is a workable substitute. And if the people in your class are flaky it might be the only substitute you can get.
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