Two of my past articles for The Teaching Professor describe different types of educational “moments”: teaching moments and critical moments. Although I have been in the classroom for nearly 35 years, I continue to seek out strategies, like these moments, to fine-tune my teaching. In fact, I recognized years ago that there is always room for improvement. Recently, however, to my chagrin, I belatedly realized that an obvious way to be a better teacher had been right in front of me my whole career but I never took full advantage of it. It involves what I have dubbed “sharing moments.” Whereas teaching moments and critical moments are strategies that teachers would usually employ during class discussion, sharing moments are more personal and tend to take place with students one-on-one, often just after class. Although brief, their value can be immense, particularly in terms of building meaningful relationships with students.
