One of the Greatest Lessons I Have Ever Learned
One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned was from a Geometry class at Western Michigan University. As part of my education major, this class was something that every student who wanted to teach math, was forced to take. The teacher for this class structured hers much different than any other class at the school. She gave us each a chapter in a math book, and we were told that in order to pass the class, we had to make sure all 30 of the other students in the class could reteach the material back to the rest of the class.
When my day arrived to begin teaching the class, I had prepared many different ways to teach the same exact material. After explaining my material one way, the teacher asked all of the students to raise their hands if they felt they understood the material enough to re-explain what they had learned. many of the other students raised their hands and she called upon one of them to re-teach what they had learned. After this happened, I had to re-teach the same subject again, but explain it in a completely different way than before. After repeating this process 3 times, I had finally accomplished the goal and I passed the class.
I learned two lessons from this:
You must be prepared to explain anything you are teaching in many different ways. Throughout the semester, some students had to try 5-6 different ways to get people to understand their subject. I was lucky to only need 3!
If you have taught something properly, the people you are instructing should be able to re-teach the subject back to others.
As a coach, I know that I have to be able to teach anything in a multitude of ways. If you don’t understand the first few ways to do something, I will be prepared with enough solutions to find something that will work for you. Secondly, it has been a priority for me to make sure each of my students can answer these questions: Do you understand WHAT the problem is? Do you understand WHY it is the problem? Can you explain to someone else HOW you fixed it?
To finish this article, I will pose this question to you. As a student, can you answer all three of those questions when you are done with a lesson?