dynamik wrote: That seems like it would be one of the more difficult topics to cram into six days. I think that's pretty good for a first attempt. What sort of experience/training did you have leading up to that? Was there a disparity amongst the students' skill levels? I think that would make teaching such a course an absolute nightmare.
MCPWannabe wrote: » ...... When we got to Reflections, Hashing, Application Interoperability, Threading, and Trusts, my teaching skills weren't developed enough to pass the material on as easily to the students. ...... So, I got my evaluation by the students, and I ended up getting a 7.15/9.0, which in Microsoft Teaching Terms wasn't too hot. Anything below an 8 out of 9 is considered bad in the microsoft certified trainer world......
FirstCool wrote: » MCPWannabe, First off, I want to congratulate you on your call center escape. It's always great to hear that hard work pays off financially and that you enjoy your new employment situation. That combination is not easy to achieve. I also want to thank you for your candor in describing your experiences. It's refreshing to hear from the "other side" of a classroom teaching situation, especially since I'm now ready to take a 70-536 class! I've been studying for 70-536 for many months and am ready for a boot camp experience. I still study the MS Press 70-536 book, plus the Base Class Library book and the Visual C# Step by Step book. My plan is to take your advice and start coding the labs in the book this month, then take a boot camp in three or four weeks, and then take the test. So far Unitek.com is the only vendor offering just the 70-536 class and test. All the others I found (MCSEclasses.com, NetWind.com, TrainingCamp.com, and CEDSolutions.com) all offer a combination of 70-536 plus whatever second test is required to complete one of the MCTS certifications. I agree completely with your assessment that 70-536 alone can be overwhelming, and I only want to tackle that one test. Unitek is offering a class near me (Northern California) later this month but my employer requires quite a bit of lead time to approve the class so I may not make it in time. Do you know of anyone else besides Unitek who offers 70-536 alone? I also find it interesting that AmericanIT.org and Unitek both appear to be offering the same material at the same time in the same places. Or...... should I be looking at vendors who offer Microsoft courses 2956 and 2957 and then just schedule the test very soon after taking that pair of classes? ONLC.com and QuickStart.com appear to provide the 2956 and 2957 material in a classroom setting. They just don't mention 70-536 or taking a test. Is taking both of those courses equivalent to a 70-536 boot camp? Walt
DeepCode wrote: » Please don't be too hard on yourself. According to your post in the 536 thread, these "experienced" programmer students had difficulties grasping basics like method-overloading, collections and polymorphism hence, they WILL have a hard time understanding App Domains, Reflection, Threading, CallBack functions and Trusts, especially on the first attempt. The "prerequisites" or the suggested qualification for taking the MS exams are too vague so I think it's quite impossible to proclaim who is qualified or unqualified to take can exam. For example, according to the 536 self-paced kit, a candidate must "have a working knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Visual Basic or C#." What exactly is working knowledge? Using the review of the students solely as the evaluation method of the instructor is certainly not the most effective and absolute way. In this case, assuming MOST of the students didn't understand the basics, how is their inability to grasp the material your fault? Also, most people who have passed this exam, including myself, will tell you one will not understand everything on the first read. Some chapters certainly took multiple reads to grasp. I am facing this issue currently with the 529. Maybe MS should add instructor-evaluations of students to the total evaluation process, if it's not being done already. This should put the "evaluations" of the students in a "scaled" perspective. btw, I have enjoyed reading your experiences as a MCT- Thanks