How teaching can help you understand better

HOW TEACHING CAN HELP YOU UNDERSTAND BETTER

Dena Falken Esq.

The learning by teaching method has been demonstrated in many studies. Students who spend time teaching what they’ve learned go on to show better understanding and knowledge retention than students who simply spend the same time re-studying. What remains unresolved, however, is exactly why teaching helps the teacher better understand and retain what they’ve learned. For a new study in Applied Cognitive Psychology researchers led by Aloysius Wei Lun Koh set out to test their theory that teaching improves the teacher’s learning because it compels the teacher to retrieve what they’ve previously studied. In other words, they believe the learning benefit of teaching is simply another manifestation of the well-known “testing effect” – the way that bringing to mind what we’ve previously studied leads to the deeper and longer-lasting acquisition of that information than more time spent passively re-studying. Here are the top three ways it helps you become a pro at that topic.

BEING A TEACHER IS AN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE

The art of teaching comes from both the brain and the heart. It's a journey that revolves around your ability to connect, inspire and enable your learners and your colleagues. This also includes the one who will fight you every step of the way. One of the crucial things to understand about teaching is that people are emotional creatures, we have no idea what another person’s journey is all about, it’s hard to remember the colleagues resisting change are afraid of losing a career that has sustained them and their family for decades. We don't always consider that a bully could be abused, misunderstood, and needs help too. It’s hard to fathom the slow learner with attention issues, maybe painting masterpieces in their spare time. But imagine how our thoughts and attitude would change if we knew these things better.

YOU MIGHT BE TEACHING THE FUTURE STEVE JOBS AND ELON MUSK

It’s you who inspires our future innovators and leaders, although children are only a small percentage of the population, they are 100 percent the future. This idea shouldn't scare you. It should inspire you. Every day you nurture the young minds that will one day transform the world we live in, you are their lifeline to success and their mentor for the learning journeys they will take beyond school. You teach them about possibilities and how they can tap their potential to achieve greatness, for themselves and the whole world and you are more than up to the task, to train them even on the day you feel like you're not.

CHANGE IN YOU Another one of the most important things to understand about teaching is that change is inevitable. If education is to continue surviving, change will continue to happen that we can’t yet fathom. Teaching has shaped itself in a few years, so imagine what the field will be like 10 to 20 years after. Do you need to worry about all of this at this very moment?

Of Course not, that would drive everyone crazy, what we need to do is to be prepared to explore it, embrace it, and learn from it. If you’ve been a teacher for pretty much any length of time, you know how quickly the education landscape is changing

My personal experience of teaching legal English has made me a better teacher and a better person. Legal English is important for every individual student and lawyer, if you need any help, feel free to reach out. www.legalenglish.com

Dena Falken Esq.