If I could give a teacher one piece of advice to help myself learn, what would it be? by Kolten

If I could give a teacher one piece of advice to help myself learn, what would it be? by Kolten - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

Many a time when I am in a classroom listening to the lecture material that a professor is giving us, ill be taking notes thinking: “ok this makes sense. I totally understand this.” Later in the day, I try to remember what the heck we talked about earlier in class, and I can’t remember it unless I look at my notes again. This makes me think: “Is it my fault that I couldn’t remember the material, because I didn’t think about it again after stepping out of the classroom? Or is it the professor’s fault for not teaching it in a fun and engaging way?”

I think we all learn better from practice. When a teacher actually gives us the opportunity right then and there to test and see if we really understand what on earth is going on in that classroom. A Prime example would be the Organic chemistry class that I took last year at my university. The professor would go on and on explaining something, and only sometimes give us a practice problem to see if we grasped the concept, but other times he would just blaze on and introduce new topics of study and leave us thinking: “wait, I didn’t even understand the first part!”

So if I could give a teacher some advice to help me learn better, it would be on-the-spot practice where we could directly apply the problem solving method we were just barely taught.