Un-qualified Network Academy Instructor?

scheistermeister

I'm posting this up to get your guys take on this. About 4 years ago I graduated from a Cisco Network Academy that covered both the CCNA and the CCNP. Since then I have started recommending it to people and trying to get involved in helping this Academy along going so far as getting my current employer to start a co-op program with the academy. Now that I have some friends and co-workers that have made it through the CCNA and started the CCNP potion I recently heard some very concerning information about it. Basically the instructor for the class is not a CCNP and has little to no networking related work experience (I know because I interviewed this person to be the co-op at my place of employment about maybe 4 months ago, they weren't selected). Needless to say some of my friends in the class a rather upset they are paying for someone without their cert (they do not know his former place of employment wasn't even network related) to teach them. I personally feel this is a dis-service to the students as well and plan on asking why my former instructor hired this person to teach.

What is your guy's opinion of this? What are the requirements to be a Cisco Networking Academy instructor at the CCNP level?

nerdydad

Wow, I was going to ask the forum what they thought of this. I am a student in this class, and I am VERY unhappy. The instructor told me he "is very confident that he is able to teach us the material" at which point I asked, why don't you take the test then, and he replied, "I don't have an answer for that".

At this point I am not sure what to do next, they have a CCNP instructor with loads of experience teaching on the same night, but he is teaching CCNA, and the instructor without the CCNP is teaching CCNP.

scheistermeister wrote: »

I'm posting this up to get your guys take on this. About 4 years ago I graduated from a Cisco Network Academy that covered both the CCNA and the CCNP. Since then I have started recommending it to people and trying to get involved in helping this Academy along going so far as getting my current employer to start a co-op program with the academy. Now that I have some friends and co-workers that have made it through the CCNA and started the CCNP potion I recently heard some very concerning information about it. Basically the instructor for the class is not a CCNP and has little to no networking related work experience (I know because I interviewed this person to be the co-op at my place of employment about maybe 4 months ago, they weren't selected). Needless to say some of my friends in the class a rather upset they are paying for someone without their cert (they do not know his former place of employment wasn't even network related) to teach them. I personally feel this is a dis-service to the students as well and plan on asking why my former instructor hired this person to teach.

What is your guy's opinion of this? What are the requirements to be a Cisco Networking Academy instructor at the CCNP level?

VAHokie56

Welp If I was currently in the class. I would go to the school request my money back and tell them to notify me when a certified instructor was available to teach the class.

alan2308

Not having the cert doesn't mean that someone doesn't know the material any more than having the cert means that they do know it all. Someone might also know the stuff but just not interview well. Experience doesn't always translate well to the classroom either.

The question is how effective of an instructor this person is. I'm not sure what the requirements for a CNA partner institution are, or if there even are any, but I'd be more concerned with how well the instructor teaches than what pieces of paper he has. When I took the CCNA Security class, the teacher didn't have a CCNA security, and let all his Cisco certs expire years ago. Did that matter? Absolutely not.

nerdydad

So your instructor had industry experience? This instructor does not. The piece off paper tells me that this instructor knows the material well enough to pass the test. As it stands now, all I have is his word that he knows enough to teach it, if you know enough to teach me the material on the test, take the test. I can self study for free, I take these classes to further expand on the material in the books, but I have an instructor that only knows the book really well, or at least that is how it is being sold to us at the moment.

Scheistermeister, I really look forward to hearing the explanation you get.

alan2308 wrote: »

Not having the cert doesn't mean that someone doesn't know the material any more than having the cert means that they do know it all. Someone might also know the stuff but just not interview well. Experience doesn't always translate well to the classroom either.

The question is how effective of an instructor this person is. I'm not sure what the requirements for a CNA partner institution are, or if there even are any, but I'd be more concerned with how well the instructor teaches than what pieces of paper he has. When I took the CCNA Security class, the teacher didn't have a CCNA security, and let all his Cisco certs expire years ago. Did that matter? Absolutely not.

MrRyte

alan2308 wrote: »

Not having the cert doesn't mean that someone doesn't know the material any more than having the cert means that they do know it all. Someone might also know the stuff but just not interview well. Experience doesn't always translate well to the classroom either.

The question is how effective of an instructor this person is. I'm not sure what the requirements for a CNA partner institution are, or if there even are any, but I'd be more concerned with how well the instructor teaches than what pieces of paper he has. When I took the CCNA Security class, the teacher didn't have a CCNA security, and let all his Cisco certs expire years ago. Did that matter? Absolutely not.

Agreed. Knowing the material for yourself is one thing. Effectively teaching it to others is quite a different matter. If you have a certain question or issue; is he able (or willing) to help you work through it?

alan2308

nerdydad wrote: »

So your instructor had industry experience?

This one did, but I can assure you that quite a few community college instructors and even university professors don't, and they do just fine. Some of my favorites went straight from student to instructor. But my point was, since this one didn't have the CCNA Security, he's completely unqualified to teach the class by your standard, right?

Personally, when I'm in the classroom, I'd rather have a good teacher than anything else. But to each his own.

alan2308

MrRyte wrote: »

Agreed. Knowing the material for yourself is one thing. Effectively teaching it to others is quite a different matter. If you have a certain question or issue; is he able (or willing) to help you work through it?

And as most will agree, having a piece of paper doesn't really prove you know anything. People are only a braindump away from passing a test.

powerfool

Well, I think that the academy can lose their partner status and ability to teach the course as a legitimate Cisco Networking Academy course. First and foremost, the instructor MUST not only have the certification, but must have passed the current exam that the course covers. In addition, the instructor must go through a "train the trainer" course put on by the state's sponsor for the Cisco Networking Academy (I am not sure about Ohio, but Indiana is sponsored through Ball State University).

I am currently looking to either begin teaching the CCNA academy courses through my alma mater or checking to see if they want to pursue VMWare curriculum.

In a related situation.... my wife found out that her LPN program is not accredited. It isn't a big deal because this accreditation is actually very new... but she was told that they already held it. They are only "in process"... which works out fine if they get the accreditation... but stinks if they don't. Her end goal isn't the LPN, though... she is just short-circuiting the the RN process as the accredited RN programs in the area are either massively waitlisted or are through overpriced and questionable schools. So, she is moving on to an LPN-to-BSN program immediately after graduating.

I am about ready to have words with the director of her program because of this issue and many unprofessional attitudes of the instructors... I would advise you folks to do the same.

pham0329

alan2308 wrote: »

And as most will agree, having a piece of paper doesn't really prove you know anything. People are only a braindump away from passing a test.

No, but not having the "piece of paper" doesn't help the argument.

I think that its fine if you're going to mentor your colleague or your friends based on your experience, but if you're going to be in a formal classroom environment, I think you need to be certified in the field you're teaching in. It's like going to school...I expect my High School teacher to have at least graduated HS.

Blackout

TBH I think everything boils down to what the rules that are set in place for the academies say. If they say the person is supposed to be qualified then........Derp.

nerdydad

But the teacher you had without the cert had experience, one or the other, i am fine with that, but it is my money and with neither a cert or experience, I am not comfortable spending it.

If you feel confident enough to teach the class, go take the test, it really is that easy.

alan2308 wrote: »

This one did, but I can assure you that quite a few community college instructors and even university professors don't, and they do just fine. Some of my favorites went straight from student to instructor. But my point was, since this one didn't have the CCNA Security, he's completely unqualified to teach the class by your standard, right?

Personally, when I'm in the classroom, I'd rather have a good teacher than anything else. But to each his own.

scheistermeister

nerdydad wrote: »

But the teacher you had without the cert had experience, one or the other, i am fine with that, but it is my money and with neither a cert or experience, I am not comfortable spending it.

That is my personal feeling as well. When I went through the course the instructor had previous experience and previously held the cert. Just let it lapse. This I had no issue with.

The current instructor has no cert, has not been through the tests and has no experience in the field. Only previous work experience is manager at a fast food restaurant. In speaking with my boss and the director that helped me get the co-op thing going were rather shocked. Seems they are going to have a talk to the head of the program asking why they feel this person is qualified to teach; mainly because we have stated that it would be a possibility for us to hire students that have graduated. Their thoughts were that this seriously diminishes the credibility of the class.

scheistermeister

nerdydad wrote: »

So your instructor had industry experience? This instructor does not. The piece off paper tells me that this instructor knows the material well enough to pass the test. As it stands now, all I have is his word that he knows enough to teach it, if you know enough to teach me the material on the test, take the test. I can self study for free, I take these classes to further expand on the material in the books, but I have an instructor that only knows the book really well, or at least that is how it is being sold to us at the moment.

Scheistermeister, I really look forward to hearing the explanation you get.

Heh, was wondering if any of you guys were on here.

Turgon

scheistermeister wrote: »

What is your guy's opinion of this? What are the requirements to be a Cisco Networking Academy instructor at the CCNP level?

Who knows. Some years ago I was interested in becoming an instructor but to get your CCSI badge you had to be taken on by a training partner in good standing who would put you through the course. I made some enquiries but the few shops I approached were not hiring as there was a downturn. It wasn't possible to get your training badge as an independent.

Perhaps the same holds true today, dunno as I have been pretty busy in the field for over 10 years. What I will say is that with the Cisco boom, the academy boom, and the general training boom you can expect some sloppy practice out there. You need to be careful about recommending anyone because with elapsed time there is always the risk that the quality goes. There are some great instructors out there, but the old adage of if you cant do it you teach it holds true. Training doesn't pay a lot of money for many trainers when compared to *good* networking jobs and a lot of training houses just need someone to stand up, or sit down and run a class. Often this involves down pat slides, a workbook and some exercises. When you boil training down to that level, it aint difficult to do.

I should add this isn't new. When the industry boomed in the late nineties we had people on forums with MCT and CNI. You know what? Many had marginal production experience. They crammed and dumped exams and got through a short vanilla course to become an instructor and hey presto they were running a class paid for by naive wannabes who hung on every word. Novell was particularly frightening. I saw a post on a forum where back in the day, a loophole in the testing mechanism enabled someone to take the test twice in the same day, and certainly twice in a week. So you could take it and pass, then take it again after boning up to get your score to a level that enabled you to become an instructor! Cisco had a similar criteria..to teach a class you had to have a pass score of 'X'. No wonder dumping was so rife.

Buyer beware. Im all for classroom instruction but there is a lot of mediocrity around and that isn't a new thing.

Turgon

alan2308 wrote: »

Not having the cert doesn't mean that someone doesn't know the material any more than having the cert means that they do know it all. Someone might also know the stuff but just not interview well. Experience doesn't always translate well to the classroom either.

The question is how effective of an instructor this person is. I'm not sure what the requirements for a CNA partner institution are, or if there even are any, but I'd be more concerned with how well the instructor teaches than what pieces of paper he has. When I took the CCNA Security class, the teacher didn't have a CCNA security, and let all his Cisco certs expire years ago. Did that matter? Absolutely not.

For all the shortcomings of certification, I do think someone should have the relevant valid certification behind a syllabus they teach. Does that make them a great instructor? No. Could they have dumped the test? Yes. Will they have dumped the test? Who knows. But they are qualified and when it comes to instructing I think that's the base prerequisite really.

Turgon

nerdydad wrote: »

Wow, I was going to ask the forum what they thought of this. I am a student in this class, and I am VERY unhappy. The instructor told me he "is very confident that he is able to teach us the material" at which point I asked, why don't you take the test then, and he replied, "I don't have an answer for that".

At this point I am not sure what to do next, they have a CCNP instructor with loads of experience teaching on the same night, but he is teaching CCNA, and the instructor without the CCNP is teaching CCNP.

I think it's cobblers. You should be qualified to teach a class. The instructor should pass the test. One day I will be a CCIE instructor and I have plenty of experience but I will not be passing myself as a CCIE instructor until the CCIE is behind me. CCNA/CCNP should be no different.

Priston

I agree with alan. It really doesn't matter.
Is this teacher the same teacher from when you were in the network academy? If so he must be a good teacher since you recommended him.

Turgon

Priston wrote: »

I agree with alan. It really doesn't matter.
Is this teacher the same teacher from when you were in the network academy? If so he must be a good teacher since you recommended him.

I agree with Alan on one point and I dont on another.

A qualified teacher isn't always a great instructor. We both agree on that. But in my opinion someone teaching should be qualified in the subject matter by having passed the test.

TLeTourneau

I believe that someone teaching a certification based course should hold (or at least have held) the certification in question. I know the focus of this thread has been Cisco and you can bash MS all you want but at least the require MCT's to be certified in what they're teaching. Want to teach MCITP: Enterprise Administration fine but you have to be one to teach it. Experience is king in the workplace to be sure and it truly helps in the educational setting but an instructor having passed the exam shows that they at least know what is really involved in the testing. As always, just my opinion.

scheistermeister

Priston wrote: »

Is this teacher the same teacher from when you were in the network academy? If so he must be a good teacher since you recommended him.

No not the same instructor. I would have dropped the class and wanted a full refund after writing the department head and Cisco asking why someone I felt wasn't qualified was teaching.

nerdydad

This is Cisco's response to my inquiry

Cisco Networking Academy instructors are not required to be certified in the curriculum they teach but they are required to pass instructor training courses for every course they plan to teach, so rest assured your instructor has the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver the curriculum to you.

Cisco admin

I then asked them how they sell companies on the value of having a Cisco Certification, but not even require it of thier own instructors.

Bottom line, the instructor is a nice enough guy, but, he has no experience in the industry nor does he have the certification, do they expect us to pay 700 dollars to have someone read some slides to us and turn on our chapter quizzes? It's not a matter of there not being another instructor available, they have an experienced CCNP teraching CCNA students at the same time, it simply makes no sense.

Monday, one of the students is going to the Department head to request an Instructor swap, our current Instructor has his CCNA and has gone to Cisco's Instructor Course, so let him teach CCNA, but give us the CCNP. Hopefully scheistermeister is also able to apply a little pressure to get this done as well. Up until now I have been very happy with the Networking Academy, but I find this to be ludicrous, to have a class full of mostly experienced networking students being taught by someone with no experience at all.

nerdydad

Sorry Alan, but I have to call you out, if your CCNA-S instructor was so good, why didn't you go take the test after the class? The reason I am spending the money to take the classes is to get the knowledge, but getting the cert is proof to myself that I have the knowledge, it doesn't look bad on a resume either.

jschnei6

Hmm... Interesting reading (new forum member).

Having *just* sat for my CHFI, I believe that having an instructor who holds the certification for which I am studying/testing would increase my confidence in the material being presented (unless it's simply canned material, in which case, I suppose almost any monkey could deliver it).

That having been said, I suppose the real metric for any instructor would be:
What's the pass/fail ratio for their students who do sit the exam?

If the instructor is simply the mechanism through which the content is being presented, then again, monkeys will do. However, if actual perspective is desired/expected/promised, then of course an individual with practical experience and/or certification would be optimal, especially given the price of boot camps and exams these days.

unclerico

jschnei6 wrote: »

Hmm... Interesting reading (new forum member).

Having *just* sat for my CHFI, I believe that having an instructor who holds the certification for which I am studying/testing would increase my confidence in the material being presented (unless it's simply canned material, in which case, I suppose almost any monkey could deliver it).

That having been said, I suppose the real metric for any instructor would be:
What's the pass/fail ratio for their students who do sit the exam?

If the instructor is simply the mechanism through which the content is being presented, then again, monkeys will do. However, if actual perspective is desired/expected/promised, then of course an individual with practical experience and/or certification would be optimal, especially given the price of boot camps and exams these days.

Welcome to the forums.

I liken bootcamps, training academies, etc. to things like training in martial arts or being in the military. Yes, you can learn to fight from someone who has been a brawler his or her whole life, but you won't learn the finer details in terms of how to conserve your energy/strength, what areas you should specifically target over others depending on opponents body composition, proper angles for throws/leverages, etc. It's like my Sifu, he's a world champion Brazilian jiu-Jitsu player and a master in San Soo. There are countless BJJ instructors out there, but when given the choice you're going to want to learn from the champion over some other guy that did just enough to become a teacher. When you get into matches you want the insight from someone that has not only been there, but has been there and won.

Maybe my analogy doesn't work so well, I don't know. But the basic premise is that you want to learn from someone that has been in the trenches.

aldous

experienced or not you need the appropriate level cert AND the academy instructor cert test of which there are different levels (i've seen the CCNP one to be a legit academy.

Turgon

jschnei6 wrote: »

Hmm... Interesting reading (new forum member).

That having been said, I suppose the real metric for any instructor would be:
What's the pass/fail ratio for their students who do sit the exam?

While that is a logical way to look at things, it's hopelessly flawed. A lot of training shops and training classes encourage the use of ****, some have dumped material they teach, others even given them to students after class, just so the pass marks for their students are sky high and they have bragging rights to market more classes. There are some fine trainers out there, but the field is something of a racket in lots of quarters.

RobertKaucher

jschnei6 wrote: »

If the instructor is simply the mechanism through which the content is being presented, then again, monkeys will do. However, if actual perspective is desired/expected/promised, then of course an individual with practical experience and/or certification would be optimal, especially given the price of boot camps and exams these days.

I think this is the real key to the issue here. Anyone can deliver the content. But it really takes someone with experience in the real world to actually be able to provide knowledge that fills in the gaps that are always present in any certification content as well as the perspective that can only come from someone in the field.

When I was studying for my MCSE the instructor I had provided an amazing amount of guidance to me and he challenged me over-and-above the simple situations in the labs to create some very real world situations that really helped me in the exams. I could have taught the material and did so for a short while. But at that point I had some experience and was teaching MCSA/MCSE level students who had less experience than I did at the time.

Turgon

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I think this is the real key to the issue here. Anyone can deliver the content. But it really takes someone with experience in the real world to actually be able to provide knowledge that fills in the gaps that are always present in any certification content as well as the perspective that can only come from someone in the field.

When I was studying for my MCSE the instructor I had provided an amazing amount of guidance to me and he challenged me over-and-above the simple situations in the labs to create some very real world situations that really helped me in the exams. I could have taught the material and did so for a short while. But at that point I had some experience and was teaching MCSA/MCSE level students who had less experience than I did at the time.

I can imagine instructing getting pretty old after a while to be honest. When you are teaching the same stuff day in day out you should know it inside and out. Increasingly a lot of the more technical comments on boards come from instructors but they are either teaching mechanisms on a repeat basis, or taking time out to learn about them to produce new course content. An advantage versus the people in the field who are struggling to support what they have on their hands with limited time for reflection or research. But those folks do get the real world application of things and that's important too!

nerdydad

Well, it turns out that we did get our old instructor back, the one with his CCNP and loads of experience. One of the things that happened that really drove the point home, was when one of the students that has never had this instrutor and was opposed to the change said, "I think i took more notes in one night than i did through all of the CCNA material."

RobertKaucher

Turgon wrote: »

I can imagine instructing getting pretty old after a while to be honest. When you are teaching the same stuff day in day out you should know it inside and out. Increasingly a lot of the more technical comments on boards come from instructors but they are either teaching mechanisms on a repeat basis, or taking time out to learn about them to produce new course content. An advantage versus the people in the field who are struggling to support what they have on their hands with limited time for reflection or research. But those folks do get the real world application of things and that's important too!

I completely agree. There is a similar issue among foreign language instructors. Some students demand native speakers; others do not. But I think it would be foolish to pay for classes from a foreign language instructor who had never actually carried on a conversation with a native speaker at all, regardless of how well he or she had actually learned the material in the books.

And in the instance in question this was the instructor's first class. All he had ever done was complete the academy, pass his CCNA, and finish the 2 week (or whatever the length is) instructor's course. Ethically, I think there really is a concern here about if this person was truely qualified to teach a CCNP level course. If I were paying good money and my future depended on the work I was doing in the class, I would not want to be the academy's test students for this person as an instructor. I'm not there to be someone's 90 day evaluation period.