Personality Of Teaching

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