Teaching and Learning

As an agricultural communications student at Texas Tech, I get to take a class called introduction to agricultural education. Before the semester started, I wasn’t too excited about this one. It is a lower-level class and I don’t have much interest in teaching. However, it has turned into one of my favorite classes of my entire college career.

It is interesting because we are studying the theories of how people learn and I love learning why we do things a certain way or why we think the way we do.

The Father of experiential learning, John Dewey, once said, “An ounce of experience is worth more than a ton of theory.”

In a recent lecture, we studied about how past experiences affect other knowledge that is gained. The example my professor used was learning to drive – when you turn 15 and are taking drivers education, most people understand that red means stop, green means go. We bring in prior knowledge and apply it to the new information. We have experience in others stopping at red lights and going when it turns green.

The point was brought up that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to others. As a teaching assistant (TA) for an ag communications technical writing class at Tech, I have the opportunity to lecture occasionally. I have taken the class once, sat through last semester’s class as the TA but when I teach, I not only learn about the topic that I’ve been exposed to at least twice, but I truly understand it.

“Teaching isn’t about what you know; teaching is about what you can learn and share with others.” – Dr. Rudy Ritz, professor of ag education at Texas Tech.

That is my hope with this column – that I can take what I learn through my experiences in life and share it with you to encourage and uplift.

The word ‘teach’ appears 361 times in the New International Version of the Bible.

Psalm 25:4 says, Show me your ways Lord, teach me your paths.

I look forward to sharing more about what I’ve learned in this class and how the knowledge can be applied to every day life and our walk with God. And maybe that is the reason that I love the class so much – because what we are learning is applicable information that I can use right now, this very day.