Personality Of Teaching

This is an event for Easter in Utah that I am a part of. Take your family to it and join in the festivities. 

 Come Discover Spring on Young Living Lavender Farms

March 17^th, 2008- Young Living farms and BYU partners to throw a Utah community Easter festival. The festival is geared towards families of all ages, with a variety of entertainment, activities and prizes. A group of BYU’s students enrolled in a recreation management class are paired up with Suzette Caplin of Young Living Lavender Farms to plan, facilitate and run this event.

            The students are learning experience based lessons about event planning and event management. The focus of the class is on hands on learning and Young Living is providing those opportunities for the students by funding the event. The event is to be held Saturday March 22^nd from 11 am to 3 pm on the Young Living Lavender farm in Mona, Utah.

            The activities for the event vary from An Easter egg hunt to a rock climbing wall to face painting to a petting zoo. The Easter bunny is even said to make an appearance there. Families from all around are encouraged to come and join in the fun on the farm. Their theme is ‘Come Discover Spring’ and even though Easter comes early into March the students are still holding out for good weather and looking forward to having fun with the community.  

After each lesson or presentation we give we should take time to step back and analyze our performance. Not in a self destruct kind of way but a way that help us realize what went well so we can do it again and what didn’t so we can change it. Taking a few minutes to ask yourself and answer these questions after every presentation or lesson you give will improve your teaching. (more…)

I found this video and thought is was intriguing, not too mention pretty hilarious. Talk about thinking outside of the box and using some dynamite leadership skill.

Lets dive into the first topic, Content is King, of a 5 part series in becoming a better teacher and public speaker.

Ideas are the basis of every lesson, whether you are teaching the idea of Newton’s law, the idea of appropriate dating or the idea of running a more effective office meeting an idea is the foundation. Everything else is just supporting the idea being taught. It is easy to get caught up in the facts, the experiences or the argument we are sharing, and allow the idea to get lost under it all. (more…)

There is a common myth that all of society seems to be entrapped by. It is perhaps one of the reasons a lot of us get so nervous to teach anything to anyone. People believe that the ability to teach is a gift, you either have the gift or you don’t. The fact of the matter is that teaching is skill and so just like any other skill you can learn it. People aren’t born knowing how to carve, or play the piano, or sew. We learn those skills because that is what interests us. Our level of interest is often what drives our skill level.

If you have minimal interest then it only makes sense that you will have minimal skill level. We have to understand though that interest is more then just a desire it is a force that pushes us to action. Action is what ultimately takes you to great skill levels. You can learn to be an excellent teacher. Teaching is a skill and just like learning to carve or sew there are things you can study to become an expert teacher. So lets put that myth to rest and start now studying to be a teacher that students are effected by. People are not born great teachers they are driven by interest to that greatness.

I’ve compiled a list of skills (in no particular order) that every teacher must research, understand and then implement. There are 5 skills and my plan is to write a post about each one over the next couple of weeks. 5 skills, one post every three days or so, discussing: why it is so important, the impact it can have and where to go to find out more information. Here is a brief summary of each post to come. (more…)

The beginning of a lesson or presentation is vital. In the first 5 or 10 minutes you could win the hearts of your audience or turn them off completely to the idea of ever valuing what you say. It can be hard to believe that people can be so cruel, to pass judgment in so little time. But in reality that is how our paradigms work. We use them to quickly sort the information of lives, deciding what is worth our time and what isn’t. A teacher is no different, a student will analyze them and in the first few minutes decide if its more worth their time to listen to the lesson or if daydreaming will be more beneficial. (more…)

People have opinions… well no duh, you might be thinking. Its true it is a simple statement that anyone could believe. But what does it mean to have an opinion? An entire dissertation could be created to answer this question, one exploring how they form and why and how people portray them. However for our purposes here there is one vital factor we must understand. An opinion is an idea that is directly connected to someone’s heart.

When we are teaching and invite comments and questions we must understand that we are inviting opinions or in other words we are inviting people to publicly voice their hearts. When this happens you must realize what a great responsibility you have just taken on. You are telling people that you want to hear what they have to say because you feel their thoughts will add to your lesson. And so when they speak in order for them to feel appreciated you must wield each comment with the utmost respect. (more…)

“Professors known as outstanding lecturers do two things; they use a simple plan and many examples.” - W. McKeachie

We learn in the form of stories we are naturally connected to stories, that is what we are most familiar with. Our lives are one story right after another all blending together with no real end or beginning and so to apply a concept we don’t understand against something we are so familiar with makes a lot of sense.

The majority of our conversations are relaying stories to each other, whether they are the happenings of the day, past experiences in our lives or things we dreamed up during moments of relaxation. We love sharing each other’s experiences and are intrigued by their views and perspectives on life.

Teaching is the perfect place for a story because one of your goals as a teacher is to capture your audience’s attention, a simple truth is if you don’t have their attention you will never be able to teach them. Although we are teaching new concepts and ideas that is not what is going to be the factor that maintains the audiences’ attention. The audience, before they will ever take your words as truth, must feel a connection to you as a person rather then just a speaker. The fastest way to achieve that connection is to share a personal story from your life. (more…)

Teaching is something we’ve seen almost daily from the time we were little. We’ve seen it in Elementary School, Junior high, High school, College, Tech schools, sports, 4-H, Church, Youth Groups, and so many more situations. And most of us at one time or another will find ourselves in a situation where we are teaching others.

But what is teaching? What is the difference between teaching and holding a group prisoner against their desire until you run your voice dry and time expires? We like to justify that teaching is not a form entertainment it is a form of work and therefore if people don’t enjoy it is their own fault. Teaching is instead probably or can be one of the most perfect unions of work and entertainment in this world. (more…)

The Personality of Teaching is a blog dedicated to one of my passions, teaching. My goal is to provide useful advice and helpful resources for anyone who has anything to teach. Not all of us are teachers by profession but we will all have the need opportunity to teach others.

Whether it is training a new group of employees, teaching your own family or teaching in church these skills and resources will help you capturing your audience and get your point or concept across effectively. You can teach a lesson or present a presenatation that is both informative and interesting to listen to if you implement an practice the right skills.

Teaching is a skill everyone should and can know. This is the first post on this budding blog so stick around and see what becomes of one blog, a passionate person and a little off the wall humo