RE: How do you conduct live software training workshops properly

["Daniel Ng" <kjng -at- gprotechnologies -dot- com>]

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This is really powerful stuf.. Much appreciated

So next time in a class. Ppl we're going to be doing x.

Why don't you try do x on your own first, 5 minutes.

And then you get one of them to demonstrate later...
Ok..

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Neilson [mailto:neilson -at- windstream -dot- net] 
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 7:20 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: How do you conduct live software training workshops properly

Daniel Ng wrote:
> How do you do it, to keep the class in order and in pace? 

I think it's like teaching mathematics. Students hate to see the prof work
through the problem. The get lost, pick their noses, read the joke at the
beginning of the following chapter of the textbook, or (most
commonly) daydream about (or txt to) other students.

In math, the key is the problem set.

A problem set is to be worked individually, within a particular time frame,
like perhaps six or seven minutes. Longer problem sets can be given as
homework, but they must contain the excitement needed to carry the students
into actually working them.

After the alloted time, the prof can invite the students to present their
methods for obtaining the answers, and if none of them hit the mark, he can
put in a few of his own suggestions. Class discussion can be properly
limited in mathematics (unlike the "social" "sciences") because there is a
right answer, and there are only a few best ways to find it.

The knowledge comes from working the problems and getting the "A-ha!" of the
right answer. Problems should be difficult enough to require work, but not
overwhelming. Individual work is crucial. Being told the answer to a problem
you didn't get, or working in a group, or having it explained to you, is
generally ineffective.

The problem-set method is not unlike that used for teaching newswriting,
where the students get an in-class assignment (usually within the first half
of the very first meeting of the class) to produce a ten-minute story from a
fact sheet. "Here are the facts. Deadline is ten minutes from now. Write a
news story. Go!" Daily repetition of the assignment makes the students able
to write a good story in ten minutes, a skill crucial in newspaper work.

Think back to the best two or three teachers you ever had. They are the ones
who could maintain a sense of excitement about the subject throughout the
semester. Every day you couldn't wait to get to the next meeting of the
class.

There's some way you can make your class like that. Be exciting. Be tough.
But be exciting.


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