What is Teaching and Learning

What is Teaching and Learning

        If someone would have asked me this question before I took Biology Application, I would have quickly stated that teaching is providing individuals (students and non-students) with necessary information that allows them to interact more effectively with their environments (social, cultural, political, etc.). I would have also just as quickly replied that learning is utilizing information that you are taught in ways that allow you to both enhance and supplement previous bits of information is ways that were not previous available or known to an individual. However, both of these definitions make teaching and learning seem like they are an exact science and that if the above listed guidelines are strictly followed that teaching and learning can and will take place simultaneously, and this is surely not the case. Therefore, I also believe that along with the above definitions about teaching and learning, both are also impacted by social, cultural and political interactions  as well, and that both teaching and learning must have elements in them that (1) tries to understand an individual’s basis needs and desires for acquiring knowledge (useful or not), (2) that are flexible, (3) challenging and (4) demonstrate a profound respect for diverse backgrounds, (5) has cultural relevancy, and (6) is usable on a daily basis.

       With the above factors in mind, it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that teaching has to be done with not only a great deal of knowledge, but compassion as well. That is in order to teach effectively, teachers cannot simply just go through the motion of pretending to teach and expect their students to learn or want to learn. Different types of strategies must be utilized such as scaffolding and creative ways to teach information must be continually sought out in an effort to make lessons that are already good that much better and lessons that are not good at all more relatable to each student. Thus teaching is more than just passing down information that has been passed down for generation after generation and learning is also more than simply trying to cram information into disinterested students’ heads. However, I do not feel that subject matter has to be so challenging that it is also frustrating.

Although many may believe that if a student does not struggle with things they are challenged with and some type of frustration does not occur during this process that real learning does not occur and the information is not long lasting, I am not a follower of this type of philosophy or dogma. I have learned from numerous situations that I have not found to be neither challenging nor frustrating. I instead, my interest was piqued and I wanted to learn as much as I could about the subject matter. Yet at the same time, I am not saying that a subject should not be challenging. In some cases it should be challenging. But it also must be truly beneficial to a student’s daily life. Otherwise, it is just annoying and something that will be quickly forgot, which is not really learning.