Teaching IT

I got offered to teach part time for 3 hours on weekends, I was wondering if this is something that you would recommend, I have no experience teaching but the owner said, as long you can explain technology and do lab scenario.

I was going to teach 70-290 :P

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Sie

Sounds good to me, I've just started mentoring some apprentices at work. Takes some time up but its good to help people on their way

TechJunky

I would love to teach classes.

I would give it a shot!

sprkymrk

I taught some computer classes part time for a couple of years and it was fun for the most part.

hypnotoad

I recommend it. Teaching something forces you to really know the topic -- because you will hopefully get a lot of good questions and a lot of silly questions in class.

jryantech

Do it!

I would love to teach in a High School when I'm older or fresh out of College... I'm a teenager so I know for a fact teens will not sign up for Computer courses unless they are interested so it makes your job a lot easier then the English, Math or History teachers

jbaello

They want me to teach one of this courses:

70-291
70-294
70-236

Would you guys have an idea on how to start with this? maybe some sort of "syllabus" or a teaching program that I can use? I will setup virtualization for the students to actually do some hands on lab practice.

Again I'm quite nervous since, I've never teached before, I will ask the owner to try me out first before we proceed with a live class.

jbaello

To be honest I would be interested in teaching either a 236 or 294, so I can be a master of this stuff as well

msnelgrove

Do you know the skill level of the people that you are going to be teaching? I assume that they have knowledge of networking and operating systems if they are asking you to teach 70-291. Once you can define a common knowledge base you will know what areas you can skip over and what areas you can spend more time on.
I would look over the Prep guide available from Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-291.mspx and work out your syllabus from that.

eMeS

jbaello wrote:

I got offered to teach part time for 3 hours on weekends, I was wondering if this is something that you would recommend, I have no experience teaching but the owner said, as long you can explain technology and do lab scenario.

I was going to teach 70-290 :P

I personally like teaching because the assignments have very well-defined begin and ends.

Teaching is something that not everyone is cut out for, but I definitely encourage you to give it a shot. However, if I were a student that paid for one of those classes, I'm not sure that I would want to pay for you to figure out whether you like it or not.

At a minimum you should attend some type of education to develop your presentation and training skills. Toastmasters is good for this. There are also a number of train-the-trainer type programs available.

Regarding the content that you've mentioned in this post that you will be teaching....I'd want to know what courseware is being used. Then I'd want to have access to that courseware up-front so that I could become familiar with it before the class.

Are you being asked to assist with the delivery of classes using Official Microsoft Learning Products? If so, that is prohibited.

It's hard for me to imagine people interested in these classes that you've mentioned accepting anything other than Official Microsoft Learning Products. To be authorized to deliver those you have to be an MCT. A quote from the MCT program guide:

Authorization to teach Microsoft Courses using Official Microsoft Learning Products and/or Microsoft Dynamics Learning Products at a Microsoft Certified Partner for Learning Solutions. Because MCTs play such an important role in the training process, Microsoft requires that Microsoft Courses delivered at or through Microsoft Certified Partners be delivered only by MCTs.
Microsoft Official Courseware.

I know there are other courseware providers for these topics (the guy could have built his own courseware), and you can deliver that courseware without being an MCT. However, third-party courseware is of varying quality. From the perspective of the student spending their own cash on the class, I can't imagine why someone would take classes on these topics with courseware that is not an Official Microsoft Learning Product.

To each his own there....

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but teaching is a serious responsibility.

MS

jbaello

Thanks for the input Emes, I totally agree with this. I believe that the syllabus is none Official Microsoft Learning Products, as a matter of fact, I still have to find out if they have a syllabus of their own, and what learning product/courseware do they give the students. Ofcourse I will not pursue this if it is infact an Official Microsoft Learning Products and I am not a MCT, I wouldn't like to open a can of worms.

I will let you guys know when I find out.

Slowhand

Hey, teaching isn't a bad gig. If you can handle it, it's the best learning experiences you can have when it comes to "by the book" information. Nothing helps you retain information like teaching it to someone else.

jbaello

This is infact my main goal is to have fun while teaching and master this things

eMeS

jbaello wrote:

Thanks for the input Emes, I totally agree with this. I believe that the syllabus is none Official Microsoft Learning Products, as a matter of fact, I still have to find out if they have a syllabus of their own, and what learning product/courseware do they give the students. Ofcourse I will not pursue this if it is infact an Official Microsoft Learning Products and I am not a MCT, I wouldn't like to open a can of worms.

I will let you guys know when I find out.

No worries...and I do encourage you to pursue it if you find teaching in the least bit interesting. Qualified and good teachers for all topics are always in short supply. Based on your certifications, it wouldn't be too much work for you to earn the MCT, if you enjoy teaching and decide to go that route.

If it's not OMLP, then this is probably the perfect first teaching experience for you. However, I wouldn't go into class the first day and say "this is my first day teaching." I knew a guy who did that once and the class ate him alive.

Best of luck,

MS

jbaello

eMeS wrote:

jbaello wrote:

Thanks for the input Emes, I totally agree with this. I believe that the syllabus is none Official Microsoft Learning Products, as a matter of fact, I still have to find out if they have a syllabus of their own, and what learning product/courseware do they give the students. Ofcourse I will not pursue this if it is infact an Official Microsoft Learning Products and I am not a MCT, I wouldn't like to open a can of worms.

I will let you guys know when I find out.

No worries...and I do encourage you to pursue it if you find teaching in the least bit interesting. Qualified and good teachers for all topics are always in short supply. Based on your certifications, it wouldn't be too much work for you to earn the MCT, if you enjoy teaching and decide to go that route.

If it's not OMLP, then this is probably the perfect first teaching experience for you. However, I wouldn't go into class the first day and say "this is my first day teaching." I knew a guy who did that once and the class ate him alive.

Best of luck,

MS

**** this is scary, that's what I'm worried about actually, being eaten alive with smart students like dynamik...

dynamik

No offense, but if you think I'm smart, you're in over your head

I just skimmed this thread, so I might have missed this, but is this an "official" position, or is it more casual? Only three hours on the weekends makes it seem much less formal.

Also, just state that you don't know everything, but you know how to get answers, so you'll track down the answer to anything you don't know off the top of your head.

I started a $3000, 4-day course with an extremely knowledgeable instructor today, and that's exactly what he said. Want to hear the funny part? I actually stumped him

Mishra

When I was at ITT I was helping everyone in class do their Cisco labs for the WAN class. I read the Sybex CCNA book before I joined the class and knew every single thing they were teaching.

The instructor talked to ITT to try and get me hired on part time to help students with labs but that never happened. I thought it would have be very fun though! I'm a natural at teaching and really do enjoy helping students out. The most frustrating thing is when students have given up 1 minute into trying to help them but still want you to try and explain things.

learningtofly22

I was an instructor in the US Navy for 3 years, teaching electronic, physical, and dimensional calibration. No pressure to do the job right, if things are calibrated incorrectly, missiles land in Toledo instead of Baghdad, no pressure!

I absolutely loved every minute of my teaching experience, few things are as gratifying (to me, anyway) as introducing a new concept, getting the deer in the headlights look, then watching the light bulbs ignite.

As far as a syllabus goes, they should have everything done already, I wouldn't recommend trying to write a curriculum with no teaching experience. If you do have to, one mnemonic(sp?) for creating curriculum is PADDIE: Plan, Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate. There is much much more to it than that, but that's the foundation (for US military curriculum design, anyway).

One crucial skill you will learn as in instructor is the number one fear of man: speaking in front of an audience. I was nervous the first time I did it (in instructor school), but after that it came naturally. In your work experience, you may be put into a position where you have to speak in front of a group, and this experience will make you at ease in situations like that.

Great life experience, like emes said, if you have ANY interest whatsoever, go for it!

Oh, and it keeps you sharp on your skills also.

jbaello

I will be delivering non Official Microsoft Courses, just pretty much the book, and explain stuff they have questions about, and not spoon fed them.

How much would you charge for this? I'm still debating if I should do it or not, the center looks like they got stood by the instructor, and in pretty desperate situation.

jbaello

Finally bust my cherry, I just wanted to see how I'll get eaten alive, but I guess I didn't do bad (the student said), I did mentioned this was my 1st time, I talked alot of crap about NTFS and Raid configuration today, as well different types of backup using NTBackup for 270. Some student had experience, I was a bit nervous and scared, that I will not be able to explain and communicate things well, since english is my second language, but I guess my 1st day didn't go so bad, now this is just 3 students, the real class consists of 8 students, which is pretty scary.

And they do not have a curriculum, I cannot see myself going on this type of class, I still don't have a clear answer on how much I will be making.

It feel so different standing and speaking infront of a crowd, at the 1st 10 minutes, I felt like the whole room got dark it was like a purgatory, maybe I was about to faint or something, I just kept telling myself to relax.

astorrs

jbaello wrote:

It feel so different standing and speaking infront of a crowd, at the 1st 10 minutes, I felt like the whole room got dark it was like a purgatory, maybe I was about to faint or something, I just kept telling myself to relax.

Ah give it time, you'll get comfortable in no time flat. Either that or you'll end up like some of the best instructors I know, who take about 5-10 minutes at the beginning to really get into it.

It's not like a presentation where your on a short time limit, when the class has paid for it they won't remember the first few minutes if the rest of it is great. Congratulations on having success.

jamesp1983

jbaello wrote:

They want me to teach one of this courses:

70-291
70-294
70-236

Would you guys have an idea on how to start with this? maybe some sort of "syllabus" or a teaching program that I can use? I will setup virtualization for the students to actually do some hands on lab practice.

Again I'm quite nervous since, I've never teached before, I will ask the owner to try me out first before we proceed with a live class.

I would def set up virtual machines for the students. Are you using a lab book? Make up a power point presentation on the material.

jbaello

jimmypizzle83 wrote:

jbaello wrote:

They want me to teach one of this courses:

70-291
70-294
70-236

Would you guys have an idea on how to start with this? maybe some sort of "syllabus" or a teaching program that I can use? I will setup virtualization for the students to actually do some hands on lab practice.

Again I'm quite nervous since, I've never teached before, I will ask the owner to try me out first before we proceed with a live class.

I would def set up virtual machines for the students. Are you using a lab book? Make up a power point presentation on the material.

I am just starting to realize now, on how disorganized the place is, and it's too bad, that there are student that cannot go to other career center since they are the only one approved by the government for student loans (as mentioned by one of the student), I must say I feel bad for this student, specially teaching is new to me as well.

I will still talk to the owner, and I will demand them to purchase at least 2 powerful server to run virtualization, to do lab exercise, there is a projector inplace, and I do not have a powerpoint presentation, I thought the center would have some sort of program already in place, it's chaos.

mgeorge

I used to teach Microsoft and CompTIA courses but now I'm just the cisco instructor. I actually thought teaching Microsoft courses were pretty easy, they were pretty straight forward when explaining material, of course teaching CompTIA courses can be a walk in the park if you live and breath computer software/hardware.

As long as you have a great teaching personality and dont bore your students by talking like a tape recorder then students will pay attention and/or like you... Of course there is no garuentee's haha!!

jbaello

mgeorge wrote:

I used to teach Microsoft and CompTIA courses but now I'm just the cisco instructor. I actually thought teaching Microsoft courses were pretty easy, they were pretty straight forward when explaining material, of course teaching CompTIA courses can be a walk in the park if you live and breath computer software/hardware.

As long as you have a great teaching personality and dont bore your students by talking like a tape recorder then students will pay attention and/or like you... Of course there is no garuentee's haha!!

I tried my best to keep the 3 students involved on my 1st day, and have them actually do alot of exercise, at one point I would ask questions, and I can tell I got to get them to think, and they are pretty interested in sharing their knowledge, I am sure I am also contributing on their ability to speak publicly, I did this based on my experience as a student when I was in college, and one thing I think that made them more motivated is the fact that 80 % of the time I did exercise and explained things with the current knowledge that I have instead of reading books aloud. My strategy if things goes as planned, is to do actual lab practice 90 % of the time, using resource such as trainsignal etc. then it's up to them to study transcenders and such and prepare for their exams.

I am still negotiating my rates with the owner.

Thanks for the advise mgeorge

zen master

I've taught IT as well, and I made some pretty good money. Actually, more money than I'm making now. I'd love to get into lecturing, but the time, effort and money involving in doing a PHD ... ugh. If I can get through with an MSc, I would definitely get back into it. Absolutely fantastic hours and vacation bundled with great pay.

kellyjohn

dynamik wrote:

No offense, but if you think I'm smart, you're in over your head

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