What Is Teaching Essay Example for Free

What Is Teaching Essay Teaching is to provide instructions and knowledge to someone. The term teaching is commonly used to name the set of activities which someone intentionally undertakes to guide someone to learn something. The overall purpose of teaching is getting someone to truly understand what it is that is being taught. An example of teaching is my mother teaching me how to properly cook curry chicken her goal was to teach me how to cook the curry without burning it; she used to say â€Å"burnt curry ruins the pot†. Learning is the acquiring of knowledge, skills, values and behaviors by study, experience of instructions. The imparting of knowledge is known as teaching, but when the teaching is introduced in a formal setting it becomes education. Therefore, they all go hand-in-hand. Teaching should be about listening, questioning, being responsive and remembering that everyone learns differently. It is about presenting concepts to be clearly understood by all, not just facts. A good teacher should help his/her students see the connections between the facts. It should peak the interest of the learner. Often times students are asked to memorize a lot of information in order to pass a test, sounds crazy right; but it is true. Students today are more focused on only what they need to know to pass the class. The question is have they really learned anything? If the test is passed does that ensure the student has learned the material or merely just memorized it? J. S. Atherton (2011) wrote that â€Å"students are also learning from other sources including colleagues and the sheer experience of being in the educational system†. In my own personal experience it was how the subject was presented that determined the extent of my learning. I remember one day in science class my teacher was telling the class about clouds and tornadoes and to be honest I really wasn’t paying attention until he said today we are going to make OUR own tornadoes. It was from that time on that I learned that I learn best by hands on experiences and examples. My teacher was effective in his teaching but he reached more of his class because he knew that some of us would do better by being shown the lesson. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956), there are three domains in the learning process: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The cognitive domain involves the knowledge and development of intellectual skills. The affective domain is concerned with growth in feeling or emotional area. The psychomotor domain involved manual or physical skills. An educated person must show mastery in each of these categories. Therefore, to me teaching is the passing of knowledge to students (cognitive) to help them better themselves thru motivation and learning (affective) so that they may improve the future. J. S Atherton (2011) also wrote that â€Å"learning is about change in behavior. † Does this mean that when we know better we automatically do better? Does this change come from learning or teaching? In summation teaching should encourage questions on what is being taught, it should encourage students to think outside the box and it should peak the interest of those who are learning. A good teacher is basically the key that can unlock a mind of hidden treasures.