Steemit People,
I write a ton of stuff. Here is a piece I wrote about teaching . Hope you enjoy.
10 Best Teaching Methods
What does it take to be an effective teacher? Is it something you can learn overnight? Do you have to have dozens of years of college in order to be effective a teacher?
According to old-school standards, yes, you would need lots of college maybe a Masters degree from some sort of prestigious school like Harvard or Yale. Today we live in a completely different world. Today we live in a world where everyone will have to teach something to someone at some point. This teaching process could be with anybody.
It could be with your friend, your parents, brother or sister, aunts, uncles, or your children. Heck you might even have to teach something to the dog at one point or another.
Most of the time these teaching interactions are going to be simple easy and fast. But my guess is, if you're reading this, you have to teach something that's a bit more difficult and time-consuming. You probably have to teach something over and over again, to various groups of people, with various different learning styles.
If what I just said describes you, then this is certainly the right book for you to be reading. In this book, I'm going to cut to the chase and give you the no bull shit ways teach anything to anybody. I'm gonna give you the 10 most essential things you must do in order to teach anybody, anything.
It is my sincere hope and goal to turn you into the best teacher that you could possibly be.
But before we begin, let's be crystal clear about something. You are not going to become a guru teacher overnight. There is a difference between knowing the walk, and walking the walk. I am going to give you the tools that you will need to start your journey. It's up to you to put in the work and the practice that it takes to become a master teacher.
I hope you're ready because this is about to be one wild ride and I'm about to give you some serious knowledge that is going to accelerate your teaching game to a whole other level.
Getting Started
So what makes me qualified to be a good teacher? How is it that I am qualified to teach you how to teach other people?
To be honest with you, there is no certification for teaching other teachers to be certified instructors in the art of teaching. If there is, it probably costs $15,000. Truth of the matter is, the only thing that makes me qualified to teach you how to be a better teacher is the fact that I have been successfully teaching for over 10 years now.
Not only have I been at this for over a decade, but I've been teaching one of the most difficult physical disciplines there is. I have been teaching parkour to kids. And not just one kind of kid. No that would be far too easy. I have taught athletic kids, not so athletic kids, and super, not so athletic kids. I've taught kids that believe in themselves and kids that did not. I've taught kids that have lived a perfectly charmed life, and kids that are been extremely abused.
I have taught kids with physical handicaps, mental handicaps (though we don't refer to them as handicaps, they're just a couple of extra obstacles in the way), kids that are been in trouble with the law, kids that are been in trouble with their parents, kids with emotional problems. The list just goes on and on and on.
Want to know the only thing more difficult than teaching kids? Teaching adults.
Adults tend to have less confidence in themselves, yet they far more abilities. They are less likely to try anything that involves even the slightest bit of risk because they have more to lose.
However, the one thing that makes adults harder to teach is their inner dialog. It is the voice they have been listening to their entire life. It is the voice that tells them with absolute certainty what they are able to do and what they are not.
And yes, I can teach them too. And so can you.
Did I mention I was teaching these people Parkour? For those of you that don't know, Parkour is an incredibly, physically demanding sport. It consists of teaching people to run, jump, swing, and climb, in ways that most people could never even dream of. We teach 4-foot-tall kids to climb 8-foot-tall walls as if they were walking up the stairs. I have taught kids to do off axis backflips with a double twist in the middle of it, off the top of a 6-foot-tall wall, and walk away like it was nothing.
With all of the strength and agility the average person thinks it takes to learn parkour, they would be surprised to learn the opposite. I thought that too for a couple of years. But as it turns out teaching parkour has nothing to do with physicality. 95% of parkour is all about mentality.
The body is already physically designed to do most of the things that we teach in parkour. It is designed to run, jump, swing, flip, fly, and climb. It's actually the mind that stops us from doing these things on a regular basis. We've been told our whole lives to walk down the sidewalk, to be careful when crossing the street, “don't climb up that thing you'll break your arm,” etc. etc.
So when I was learning to teach parkour had to find a way to break down different circumstances and different complex movements to every kind of learner out there. Not only did I have to break it down and teach it to them but I had to make sure that these concepts were thoroughly understood. A lack of understanding can lead to injury. Or even worse can lead to a bruised ego.
If want someone to stop listening to you, embarrass them.
Another large challenge that I encountered when learning to teach parkour was teaching multiple different kinds of learners, side by side, with other kinds of learners. On any given class day, I would have as many as 15 students, if not more. In that group of boys there were always several different learning styles.
There were boys that learned just by seeing it. There were boys that learned by doing it and messing it up a whole bunch of times. And then there were boys that needed to break down and analyze every single piece of it, so that they knew exactly what they were getting into, before they even did the move the first time.
Teaching one child a move, when they are in a group of several children, is just the beginning. Parkour is a sport that chains multiple moves together in what are called lines. Even small lines in parkour can have as many as five different moves, and each of those moves can have several different moving parts. Not only that, but the student needs to be able to transition out of one move into another. You can see where this can get incredibly difficult, really fast.
The real revelation came to me when I had to break down these lines. I figured out that if you teach them part A, then teach them part B, let them try it, and then teach them the in between, the students had a much higher ratio of retention. This new way of breaking things down that I discovered really set me off on a path to mastery.
Over the next several months I spent a great deal of time analyzing and breaking down different teaching strategies. I really wanted to find the perfect way to deliver the information to any student, regardless of their learning style. It took a ton of practice, and I tried on a bunch of things that didn't quite work so well. But in the end what I walked away with, was a method for delivering information, in a way that made it understandable, small and digestible, and fun.
So, let’s get into it.
Lesson #1
Understanding your student
No two human beings are like. Even with identical twins, there are some minor variations. Whether it's small imperfections in their skin, varying patterns in their teeth, or even different fingerprints. The way that humans process information varies from individual too individual as well.
Mainly, every bit of that difference, is based on how we perceive things, how things make sense to us, and how they will process in the brain
Since each human is different, lots of information can be interpreted differently. There are, however, some commonalities that ring true throughout our entire species. We all need to eat, we all need to breathe, we all need to drink, and we all have to learn. Those are some basic fundamentals about our species, but there's some other things that are very important to almost every single person on this planet.
In my personal opinion, the first, and foremost, of those is the need and want for respect. With the exception of the rare occasional fetish, most people need to be treated respectfully. The only problem is, those that don't have it, want it, and those that do have it, generally don't give it.
Right about now, I'm sure you're saying, “Geez Brian, that's fantastic, but what the heck are you talking about?”
I am talking about knowing your students and giving them the respect that they deserve.
When someone comes to you, and they want to, or have to, learn something from you, it's very important that you treat them with respect. Don't treat them like some idiot, or someone that is beneath you because they don't know the things that you know. By simply coming to you, they are exposing the side of themselves that they probably wouldn't show two most people. It's up to you to recognize that this person has put themselves in a vulnerable position by asking you for knowledge.
If you belittle them from the very beginning, no one is going to want to learn from you. Not only that but you may crush that persons drive to ask anyone else for help on that subject matter….ever.
Listening to your student and respecting their desire to learn is very important, but it is only one part of knowing your student. When you decided that you are definitely going to teach them something, it's important that you find out what kind of learner they are. Are they a visual learner, someone who learns by being told or by reading, or are they the type of person learns by doing.
We will break these down further later on in this book, but for now, it's important to know that this is something you have to find out in the beginning.
One of the most important things that you need to know teaching someone, is whether they HAVE to learn what you have to offer, or whether they WANT to learn what you have to offer. Each of those requires a different approach.
Let's start with those that HAVE to learn what you want to teach them. Generally, this is someone that is learning because their job is making them do it, or it is a skill that they must pick up. With someone that is there because they have to learn what you have to teach them, it's important to take a no bull shit approach. You want to make sure you cut to the chase as quickly as possible.
You can't treat this person the same as you would someone that wants to learn what you have to offer. Granted, you still have to teach them and there still steps that you need to go through in that process, but you really have to boil everything down to most necessary information. Like a Band-Aid you just want to rip it off real fast, and get it over with.
One of the things that I hate the most, is looking through countless amounts of online tutorials, trying to find one bit of information. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.
I've been doing video motion graphics and design for a very long time. The software that I use to do all this artwork can be quite complex. There are very few people on this planet that know how to do everything, in all of the software. What I find annoying is when I'm digging through online tutorials, trying to find something that is relatively complex. Something that a complete newb is not going to be looking for. And then, the person that is giving the tutorial, makes me sit their boring ass set up, while they stutter and stumble over their own words, trying to get to the point of the tutorial. Then after watching them fumble with some sort of half assed set up, I have wasted minutes of my life watching, and they still don't have the answer I was looking for.
Which brings me to another point about knowing your student. Make sure that what you’re teaching them, is what they came there to learn.
Since they have to come, and learn this knowledge from somebody else, and it is something that they need to know, not something that they want to know, you should get straight to the point. They don't care about the pageantry, They don't care about the reasons why unless they're going to directly affect what they are learning this knowledge for.
However, when we are dealing with a person that WANTS to know what you have to teach, as in they have sought you out, you can afford to take a little bit more time. You don't want to beat around the bush, but, we don't just want to boil everything down to one core concept.
With the person that is seeking knowledge because they want to, you can afford to give extra information. It doesn't have to be so "Wham Bam think you ma'am.”
This person is probably pretty interested in all the intricacies and details. This is probably someone that is very interested in the why.
So to recap:
Lesson #2
Start with why.
Starting with why is one of the most important things that you can do when you start to teach
Whether you’re doing it once at the very beginning of their instructional process, or you’re doing it at the beginning of each and every lesson, starting with WHY can sometimes make the difference between information it sticks, and information that goes in one ear and out the other.
By starting with why you make the importance of the information that you are about to teach crystal clear. Why do you do this? Why learn this? Why is this information so important? Why can’t they just learn this on their own?
Starting with why can really help your student take this information and separated from all the other usless information that they have gotten everywhere else. Let me give you an example. Since I have used teaching parkour in the past I’m going continue to use that analogy throughout the rest of this book.
One of the first things that we teach in parkour is how to land properly. Now, I’m sure that everybody knows that you have to land the right way or otherwise it’s gonna hurt. But the why is a little bit more deep than that. Teaching people why they have to land properly is essential to not only keeping them safe, but ensuring that they have enough explosive power to transition into the next move. There are also several safety features built into a parkour style landing that keep all the little impacts from adding up into one big injury.
That analogy breaks down even further when you start talking about the different positions of each part of the body. Why do the knees go to the outside during compression? Well so they don’t smack you in your face. Why do you use your hands and slap the ground? So that you’re using more than just your legs help cushion and absorb the impact, and to keep from getting whiplash. Why do you keep your eyes fixed 2 feet out in front of your hands? Because it helps keep the spine straight and prevents damage to both the rib cage and the spine.
The why behind anything is one of the most important parts of teaching.
Being able to identify the why behind any kind of lesson has a profound effect on both you and the student. Putting the why behind the reasoning for doing something will generally leave a lasting impression with the student. It will also make them understand the knowledge much deeper, and retain it much better. Being able to find the why behind a piece of knowledge will not only make you more knowledgeable, but it will add a greater sense of authority to you as a teacher.
So the next time you sit down to actually prepare a lesson plan or even think about what your teaching, make sure that you take the time to understand the reason why.
Then, in the teaching process make sure that you’re very crystal clear as to why they need to know this. You will have a much better retention rate from your student, and they will ultimately be more knowledgeable about the subject when the time comes to utilize that information.
So to recap:
Lesson #3
What kind of learner are they?
Each and every single one of us learns in a different way. However, there are some commonalities amongst us all. Most people fall into one of three categories. They are either a visual learner, an auditory learner, or they kinesthetic learner.
A visual learner has to see things in front of them. Meaning, you’ll either need to show them an example, or draw a picture, or write it out. It doesn’t really matter how you do it. So long as, you are giving them some sort of visual reference to learn by. Kind of a show, don’t tell situation.
The visual learner is definitely going to need things placed directly in front of them. So, if you do wind up teaching a visual learner, don’t be surprised if you have to demonstrate or draw on the board.
The auditory learner needs to hear things. Meaning, they either need to hear you say it crystal clear, or they need to hear the music, or they need to hear some sort of in-depth explanation. A lot of times auditory learners are very musically inclined. This doesn’t mean that all auditory learners are gifted musicians. But, if you can find a way to break things down into a rhythmic process for an auditory learner, you’re deftly going to give them an upper hand.
There are a lot of ways to identify an auditory learner. Are they always banging on the desk creating some sort of rhythm? Do they spend most of the day in their headphones? Have you seen or heard them play musical instrument?
These are not always dead giveaways that someone is an auditory learner, but, it could deftly be a surefire indication that someone is.
The kinesthetic learner is someone that has to have motion involved. They learn something a lot faster if they’re doing it with their hands, or their operating the piece of equipment, or running the play. They may just need to get in there and work their way through the problem three or four times. With kinesthetic learners you’ll find they’re always eager to try something out, or they’ll say something like, “just let me try a few times."
But just because we broke down these three categories, doesn’t mean that everyone will automatically fall into one of those categories. You may have someone that’s an auditory learner but can also learn really well kinesthetically.
Or someone that’s a visual learner, that can learn rhythm, beat and timing, and can pick up things by listening to them as well. That’s why it’s important that you take a few minutes before you start teaching anyone and find out what kind of learner they are.
If you’re trying to teach them in a way that doesn’t click for them it can be very difficult for you to teach the material and for the student to learn the material.
So to recap:
Lesson #4
Patience, frustration and failure.
In the many years that I’ve taught parkour, I have found that students respond better to instructors that are patient. A lot of times as instructors we forget how long it takes us to learn certain things. So when we are teaching others is very important that we exercise patience above all else.
As a teacher you need to go into any teaching situation and expect everyone in the room to fail immediately. Especially, if the information is brand-new. Failure is how we have learned to grow over thousands of generations. Most of the common things that we know are because someone failed at it at some point or another. That failure was the only thing that brought about success.
Most millionaires and successful entrepreneurs will tell you that they had to fail hundreds of times before they were successful once. The same holds true for any average Joe trying to learn anything. The learning process should be wrought with failure, even if you’re doing everything right. Your student is bound to fail at some point.
When this happens there three things that must be managed.
So to recap:
Lesson #5
Be anecdotal.
Being anecdotal when you are teaching something allows you to express which are teaching in a way that most people can understand. Since the dawn of human history, we have past knowledge on through stories. Before mankind could write, and when he could barely draw pictures on cave walls, we were telling stories to pass on information.
In today’s society, we will teach without telling a story. Most of the time information is delivered in textbooks or via a tutorials on YouTube. There websites out there like Wiki-How that cut straight to the chase and deliver the information with no fluff. This is a very fantastic way to teach, but if you don’t add some sort of anecdotal story in, you lose a bit of credibility. Being able to have someone relate to something you’ve experienced is very important when it comes to teaching a lesson.
If you are teaching someone something, chances are you’ve actually used this information. If you can’t find a single instance to where you have used this information, more than likely you shouldn’t be teaching it.
Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, you may be teaching sixth grade American history and the chances are that you haven’t had an opportunity to really use six grade American history in your everyday life. But if there is a lesson that comes along with the history, for example “don’t do this because these people did this and it didn’t work out,” then you should probably try to put some sort of anecdotal story in there.
So to recap:
Lesson #6
Force interaction.
Have you ever seen that guy who just kind of stares off into nothingness? You know the one you keep having to snap your fingers in front of his face to get his attention. The one that won’t look you straight in the eye. That’s because he’s somewhere else. He is not being challenged or engaged and has pretty much shut down the entire learning process. That’s the guy you gotta go after first. You need to force interaction with all of your students, especially that guy.
Forcing interaction is not a scary thing. You can force interaction by asking a lot of questions. The shorter the timeframe in between each of your questions, the better the interaction will be, and the more attention the student will have. Say two or three sentences and have one of the students repeat back what you just said, or have them answer a question about the information you just gave them. Having your students interact with you means they are part of the learning process. They become part of the give and take that comes from teaching and learning.
You want to be careful when you’re doing the interaction process though. The idea is not to solo out or pick on a student, rather keep them engaged by constantly asking them questions or, having them play a role in the teaching process.
You can use them as an example, have them demonstrate something, use them as a reference point, etc. The important thing is that you pull them into the process so that you can keep them engaged. Because if they’re not engaged, they’re not learning.
So to recap:
Lesson #7
Break things down into bite-size chunks.
When preparing a piece of information to be taught, it’s important that you break it down into bite size chunks That way the information is more digestible.
Your ability as an instructor to section off pieces of information will set you apart from every other instructor on the planet.
Let’s go back to parkour. First you learn to jump, then you learn to land, next you learn to roll.
Those are three uniquely different moves, but, each one of those moves can be tied together in what is called a JLR combo, or a jump land roll combination. The entire combination is a lot for a student to digest if taught as a single piece of information.
However, by splitting it up into three uniquely different pieces, we are allowing the student to learn the entire combo, without having to learn the entire combo at once. Almost anything can be broken down into chunks and pieces of bite-size information.
Let me give you another example. Drinking a glass of water.
Lesson #8
Teaching the in-betweens.
Connecting different chunks of information can be a little tricky sometimes. In our last lesson we learned about taking large pieces of information and breaking them down into bite-size chunks.
The next thing that has to happen is to connect those chunks. Transitioning from one chunk of information to another chunk of information can be either difficult or easy according to how you teach it.
In parkour, this is called the transitions, or the in-between. The in-between should be taught as its own unique piece of information. By making sure a student understands the in-between of two chunks of information they’re able to translate that into more usable knowledge.
Let me give you an example. There is a point A on a map and there is a point B on a map. You teach the student how to transition along the map from point a to point B. Once they have learned how to travel that path from point A to point B. They will also know how to make it to any other location that is along that path.
Anytime you break information down into chunks, there will inevitably be transitions between each of those pieces of information. Some will be quite dramatic, some will be minor and the student will pick them up almost instinctually.
Being aware of those transitions however, makes it easier for you to teach them to the student, and to ensure that they are able to connect multiple pieces of information together.
So to recap:
Lesson #9
Don’t forget to laugh.
As human beings we have a lot of things that are stuck in our heads. Countless hours of useless information that will never use for any reason whatsoever. However, the things that tend to stand out to us the most are laughter and pain.
If you’ve ever hurt yourself really bad, I guarantee you remember it if you were still conscious. The world seems to go into slow-motion when we get hurt really bad. Thus we never forget that event.
Whenever teaching information we want to try and avoid associating that information with pain.
But I’ll bet you’ve got your favorite comedian to don’t you? You can probably remember half of their skit can’t you? Associating humor and bringing laughter into the learning environment can do wonders for student’s mindset. If a student is tense, nervous, or timid, you can break the ice by making them laugh.
Earlier we talked about using anecdotes when teaching. Using a funny anecdote at a time like this would be perfect. Anything you can do to break the ice, or ease the tension of the student is a good thing. By breaking the ice, or easing that tension, you allow the student to become more comfortable with you, and thus, more receptive to the information your teaching and.
However, the easiest way to make a student laugh is to be able to make fun of yourself. Show the student that you are not this perfect thing, that you are human and you are fallible.
You don’t have to be a comedian; you just can’t be a hard ass.
So to recap
Lesson #10
Being thrown to the wolves is a horrible way to learn.
We have all heard the term trial by fire. In the restaurant business it is called being thrown into the weeds. And in other businesses, it’s called being fed to the wolves.
Each and every single one of these phrases associates learning with pain. If you remember from our previous lesson, associating learning with pain is a very bad thing.
Trial by fire does not give someone time to truly learn from their mistakes. It does not cater to the visual or the auditory learner. It is even difficult for the kinesthetic learner to grow in a situation like that. It also associates pain and failure together instead of associating growth and failure together.
Now I know what you’re saying, there are some times when you just have to throw people to the wolves. I understand this. I spent a lot of time working in restaurants. You don’t get much of a learning period. You spend a day or two trying to pick it up, and then it’s go time.
But just because we have to experience this sometimes, doesn’t mean it’s a great way to learn.
Whenever you are given the option in teaching a student, throwing them to the wolves, tossing them into the weeds, or trial by fire should never be your first option.
So to recap
Learning to teach is a wonderful process
