Remember the best class you ever had?
Maybe it was your 10th grade English class, where you got turned on to Pride and Prejudice or Catcher in the Rye. Or maybe it was a college math class where you learned that math is not hellish – it’s actually cool!
Think back to how you felt in that class. Engaged? Like it was FUN? Like you wanted to recommend that class to everyone you knew?
There’s a very real possibility that the reason you felt that way isn’t because it was an amazing subject, it was because you had an amazing teacher. I still remember my high school physiology teacher. Somewhere between dissecting a cat and stabbing my own finger to determine my blood type, that guy won me over from English, and I’ve been a scientist ever since.
Think about it – one teacher changed the entire course of my life with one amazing class.
How did the teacher do it? I can’t remember the details of my high school teacher’s instructional style. But after 30 years of teaching different audiences, I’m willing to bet I can guess at some of the things that got me so engaged and excited about the class.
There are certain best practices that good teachers just do. Some have an instinct for it, some stumble across them, but most of us have to just plain learn them! That’s what this series of posts, Bite-sized Teaching, is all about.
Each Tuesday, I will pick one tip, technique or hack that you can use right away to improve your teaching, whether you are teaching a workshop, a webinar, an online class, or any other type of learning experience. I will break down the technique in non-technical language, give an overview of why we know it works (the evidence), and then give you one action you can do right away to use the technique in your own teaching.
After a few months, you will be impacting your students in the same way your favorite teacher impacted you!
See you next Tuesday for Bite-Sized Teaching! First up: Your Students Can’t Rave if They Don’t Remember – how to use “retrieval practice” to help your students remember the most important points of your message.
PS: If you want to get an email when I add new Bite-sized Teaching posts to my blog, just head on over to my Contact Page to connect!