how to teach

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: how to teach 👩‍🏫 

i recently started a gig as an ai mentor with surestart and xcl world academy where i teach middle schoolers about ai ethics, generative ai, app development and more.

i find it funny how elements of teaching always worm their way back to me — maybe it’s the influence of my mom who has a teaching background herself. educating others is the best way to break accessibility gaps, so perhaps that’s why i always find myself gravitating towards sharing my knowledge in some form.

i can’t say i’m anywhere near an expert at teaching, but i do have some sense for what works and what doesn’t after having taught kids specifically in the tech area for 3+ years now.

i’ll touch on 3 best practices:

1) be a friend 🫂 

naturally, kids are more comfortable and engaged around their friends. there’s an obvious connection here: be your students’ friend. that looks like cracking jokes, being relatable, and instructing in way that’s free of judgement. of course, it’s still important to strike the balance with being an authority figure and exercising control.

2) set goals for yourself and your students 🥅 

a common mistake i’ve recognized is that teachers often only set goals for their students, and not themselves. if the goal is for all of your students to gain a better understanding of ai, what does that tangibly look like for you as a mentor? maybe it’s checking in on different students, or putting together quiz-like activities. it’s up to the teacher to set up frameworks and structure that ensure student success. you can’t rely entirely on students’ self-initiative — if that was the case, why have teachers at all?

3) stress the real world applications 🌎️ 

this was one of my biggest frustrations with teachers i didn’t learn effectively with. i often felt lost and thought, “why are we even learning this?” when the real-world relevance wasn’t identified or experimented with. if you’re teaching a class about something basic like calculating percentage, showcase real world examples (ex. calculating discounts at stores or tipping). it makes learning more real and enables student to actually make connections beyond the books.

teaching is a really delicate art with a lot of different factors to consider at all times. huge shoutout to all the teachers out there .. i personally could never take that mental load on 24/7 for 9 months of the year. 😭 i do enjoy my smaller instances of it though. :)

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