Jesus was an excellent teacher for many reasons. As Christians, we
regard Him almost always most especially for his ability to teach as a
model, as His actions as described in the Bible are what we have become
to know Him, know God, and know His doctrines for us with. In James,
Martinez, & Herbers (2015), Jesus is noted for His excellent teaching
practice of teaching using narratives and analogies. They illustrate this
teaching practice of Jesus in Matthew 20. An example I have found of
Jesus using this type of teaching strategy is in Matthew 18, verses 12
through 14. Here, Jesus gives an analogy to His listeners using sheep to
represent God's people and the owner/caretaker of these sheep as God.
He describes that in the event where one of 100 sheep wanders off the
owner will seek this sheep and be happier about the one sheep than the
rest who did not wander (ESV, 2001). Such a reaction is God's with His
people for whom He cares. It doesn't matter who we are or how
insignificant we are; God loves us all and wants us to stay on the right
path with Him. He pursues us, cares for us, and loves us all. It is even
more remarkable for one who returns to or comes to God after adversity
in this analogy. In using this analogy/story to convey His message Jesus
increased His listeners attention and understanding because of its
relatability and understandability. The setting and characters He chose in
His analogy where commonplace to His listeners, rather than foreign and
non-relatable.
On this note, Jesus used a notably effective teaching strategy. James,
Martinez, & Herbers (2015) cite a few writers who explain why they
believe storytelling is effectual in teaching, as summarized as being an
interesting, attention-grabbing process that "touches the human psyche"
(p. 147). Aside from teaching analogously through the format of
storytelling, Jesus' analogous teaching can be understood as a teaching
strategy rooted in information-processing theories that fosters memory
transfer. Transfer is a basic process of human functioning as it tells people
how to behave, and/or shapes the way they think in every situation so
that people don't have to "start from scratch" in every new experience. It
refers to something learned at one time facilitating learning/performance
in a subsequent occasion (Ormrod, 2020). For example, when we use
multiplication that we learned in the third grade to figure out how to
double our dinner recipe, or simply when remember that hard work paid
off "last time" and it's likely to pay off "this time". This cognitive
theoretical skill is similar to the behaviorist phenomenon of generalization.
Of course, one can only transfer information if he or she can recall it. One
of the ways to facilitate the recall of information is through meaningful
learning (Ormrod, 2020). This refers, naturally, to the idea of making
learning meaningful. One way to do that is to make learning relatable,
interesting, and notable. The use of analogies with relatable and familiar
features is a great way to do this, as Jesus did.
As Jesus set excellent examples of meaningful teaching through
narratives and analogies, I could also do so in my hypothetical college
course entitled "Foundations of Learning and Cognition". The bases of
learning according to the different major learning theories are heavy
laden with different phenomena, processes, and terminology. One of the
best ways to teach, as the focus of this post, is through meaningful
learning, particularly through narratives and analogies. I would explain
concepts using everyday and common experiences to better illustrate
complex learning concepts. For example, when I teach the concepts of
operant conditioning I can use examples of dog training.
To continue, many people have dogs or have at least seen dogs
display certain behaviors. For example, I can explain that positive
reinforcement is any stimulus presented after a response that increases
the frequency of the response, and positive punishment is any stimulus
presented after a response that decreases the frequency of the response.
Without context, the terms are often misused and misunderstood. I can
provide a narrative that includes the illustration of the terms in action.
Many people use positive reinformcent with food such as a dog treat when
training their dogs. I can illustrate that when I am teaching my dog to
respond to the command "sit", that when I say, "sit," then my dog sits and
I then provide a little dog treat I am intending to use positive
reinforcement on this behavior. If my dog's sitting behavior increases in
response to my added stimulus, then I have successfully reinforced this
behavior. On the other hand, if I am trying to reduce a behavior's
frequency, such as my dog jumping on people, I can add a stimulus in
response to my dog's jumping behavior. For example, if I said, "no," while
removing my dog off of the person he jumped on and after time the
jumping behavior was decreased as a result, I have successfully punished
the behavior.
Now that I have explained how Jesus made His teachings clearer
using narratives and analogies, as well explained why they are so
effective, I'd like to pose a question to the class. To the readers, have you
folks ever had trouble learning difficult course content that suddenly
became clear with narratives and/or analogies? If so, please explain what
the situation was and how they helped you understand the content.
References
English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV Online.
https://esv.literalword.com/
James, G., Martinez, E., & Herbers, S. (2015). What Can Jesus Teach Us
About Student Engagement?.Journal of Catholic Education,
19(1).http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/joce.1901062015
Ormrod, J. E. (2020).Human learning(8thed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
