I was lucky enough to get a speaking opportunity to the lecturers at the IIE MSA for the School of Engineering, ICT, Science and Health in early 2022.
My topic “Teaching Principles’, this is how it went… briefly.
Always be mindful of the perspective and context. Turn up the volume to take notice
What makes a good lecture? Think about that for a moment... What makes for (1) good content and (2) a good delivery?
“The power” of deep knowledge distilled into manageable understanding makes for a good lecture; wow. that covers a lot of things.
Use language that your audience understands and resonates with..
The power of competence
The power of narrative
The power of context
The power of real life examples to provide reference
The power of authentic honesty and vulnerability
The power of setting your imagination and humanness on fire
By being a great teacher you are influencing and shaping people to potentially exponentially impact other people, hopefully for the better; this is a massive responsibility, opportunity, privilege and world changing event. You should take this seriously and be amazing.
“You need to standout in the sea of averages” - Gideon Grobler
Principle 1 - Be so good that they (your audience) can't ignore you... finding purpose
Key question to divide the crowd and spark thinking/debate… should you do what you love or what you are good at?... Ask that at your next event.
Pause and think… should you be a technically good teacher or a teacher that loves teaching? Hopefully you are both…
Technical Proficiency:
You need to be technically skillful and very good at conveying a message to improve the technical ability and even life of the audience; are you a great teacher? How do you know?
Love Proficiency:
Love for what you are doing - enthusiasm and energy is contagious.
Technical + Love Proficiency:
If you can find the thing that you have real talent and skills, and that same thing is the thing that you love, you are really onto something - you can find purpose
You can love what you are good at but you cannot always be good at what you love
Your “purpose” will most likely not find you, you need to find your purpose, it takes a lot of hard work to find your purpose; if you can find the thing you are very good at and above doing it, then you could have found your purpose … while being mindful of the economic model to support you by what you are ding… doesn't help you love what you are doing but can't financially support yourself. Your “purpose” needs to be sustainable… financially, emotionally, technically and the likes… Be a technical superstar and love what you do.
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work” - Stephen King
Principle 2 - Decisions - It's your choice (why?) you do things
All our decisions have got us to this point, the next decisions will get us to where we are going.
Avoid the path of least resistance, We need to be very clear in what you want to achieve; what are you willing to sacrifice? In a world where our time/attention is being competed for on an epic scale… Social media time vampires come to mind.
What decisions do we need to make now to become the best? What do you need to do to be so good that they can't ignore you? What decisions do me need to make to have the a great impact on the audience?
Everything in our life is our decision… What have we done? What should we do? Where should we go?
You need to decide what you want your audience to take away from the lecture; you need to decide how you are going to do just that. You need to plan and execute like a champion, to do so and learn for the next audience… Mindful attention to detail.
“We are, what we have become” - Gideon Grobler
Principle 3 - Show who you are
Show yourself to the audience… The power of you.
“Do the work - it is going to hurt - but it feels so good” - Gideon Grobler