Learning about teaching

I taught in Relief Society today...sort of. Well, I did. But I managed to do so without any instruction from me. The manual recommended breaking the class into 5 groups and having them each discuss one of the five sections of the lesson and the accompanying question associated with each. And, applying a teaching strategy I was recently introduced to, instead of following that with a leader-facilitated class discussion and sharing of insight, I redistributed the groups so that in the three new groups, there was at least one person from each of the original five who was then the expert on their question/topic and taught their new group members. By the time that ended it was time to close and I did so with a brief testimony.

I'm trying to decide it I liked it/if it went well. I really like the exercise in that it involved everyone. I feel that the job of a teacher is to facilitate learning. And this allowed exposure to all of the material, and by involving everyone in teaching it, it allowed them an opportunity to testify and learn through the Spirit as they shared. And it was engaging. It was weird to have no instruction though. Generally I think there would be at least some introduction. But all information presented in the manual was within the five sections. And it was from the Gospel Principles manual, so the content was basic and familiar and everyone was presumable well-acquainted with it already.

Anyway, it was a fun teaching exercise. I will definitely use it in my parenting class at some point. If people hadn't had their manuals, I was going to try applying another class-engagement teaching strategy in addition to instruction and discussion. Yay for learning and for teaching.