Reflection 4

So this past week I finished up the Gong book we were to read in class. I found some very interesting things in that book that provoked more thought from me and had me see teaching and learning on a new level. I feel that the Gong book doesn't just instruct you on how to teach but also on how to be an effective learner as well.

Exponential growth of knowledge comes from two essential abilities: understanding and remembering.

I felt this quote from chapter three sums up a lot about what the book is trying to enforce. We as teachers need to encourage exponential growth but also practice it ourselves. Especially as technology teachers we need to be up on all the new technology and the ever-changing aspects of it. We can't let our thirst for knowledge stop just because we have completed our degrees.


In the last chapter of the book it talks about the L/T squared and how to take the learner/ teacher role to the next level and to apply it not only in teaching students in a formal classroom but also to everyone you may meet. The roles they describe are:

1. Love
2. Action

The reason I put a picture of Christ on the top of this Reflection was that while reading the last chapter of the book my thoughts turned to Christ. I have always seen him as an inspiration in my spiritual life as someone I want to model myself after but I never really thought about connecting him to my professional career. But in all the examples they gave the ones that made the most sense to me where the ones from the New Testament.

When they describe love they say that it is infinite and we must learn to be able to always love and to be loved. If we love what and who we teach it will be easier to help them grow and become better people and to listen to that which we teach. I couldn't think of a better example of love than Christ. If as a teacher I can learn to love the subject I am teaching and the students that I have then I know I can make a difference and isn't that what all teachers want to do??

Action is defined as an effect or influence. In the chapter it explains how a teacher was trying to teacher her students about technical writing and that she would explain it and see one student understand and then she would have him explain it to the class and then she would see more people understand and then she would have them explain it and so on until the whole class understood. I found this is something we do in the church too. Not everyone can sit down with the prophet personally and learn everything about the gospel from him but we have people who understand and teach others and ultimately we all learn together and grow from our teaching experiences. As teachers we will learn from our students like they will learn from us we just need to be willing to put into Action the techniques that we know are effective and we will be able to influence those whom we teach and will be influenced as well.