John, A good classroom experience begins with three things: preparation, preparation, preparation! This is not to say that you didn't prepare, but each class requires additional preparation even if taught before. Another issue that arises is that every class has its own synergy. The concepts that were readily assimilated by one group become more difficult to unravel than a Gordian Knot by the next.
You may have been lulled into a false sense of security by the first couple of groups and then got blind-sided by the last. I suspect that you felt your "explainer" was broken because you were only prepared to explain things in one way and ran into a group that needed it in another format. Individuals have different learning modes (preferences). A diagnostic instrument called VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic), developed by Neil Fleming, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand, shows how learning preferences affect the teaching process. If you prefer to learn in one mode, you tend to teach in that mode. However, if it doesn't match the preferred mode of the majority of your class, then you will have "one of those days." If you're interested in learning more about it, you can go to the National Learning & Teaching Forum at www.ntlf.com. Click on the search link and enter the search term VARK. Teachers must always be prepared to be multi-modal and have more than one way of explaining difficult concepts (and sometimes even the simple ones). I'm still searching for the "One All-Inclusive" way of teaching sub-netting to products of our marginally effective K-12 schools systems. Basic math appears to be a foreign concept to many of my students. BTW, I still have days when I think my "explainer" is broke. This teaching gig is harder than it looks! :) HTH, Prof. Tom Lisa, CCAI Community College of Southern Nevada Cisco ATC/Regional Networking Academy "Cunctando restituit rem" John Neiberger wrote: I just feel the need to rant/vent for a bit and I knew there were a bunch of you who might be able to relate to this. I've started teaching a short, one-session general networking class for some of the people here at the bank. The first session, which was really just a runthrough with a handful of students, went fairly well. In fact, it went so well that they increased the number of overall attendees to about 60 or so. Last week I had another session that went exceptionally well, except for a couple of students who really didn't want to be there. I couldn't have asked for it to go better, and my boss heard lots of good things about it. One person even said I should be a professor! :-) Now, that brings us to today.... Today I had an afternoon class, and in my opinion it sucked rotten eggs. I feel embarrassed to have been involved with it. I can't think of too many ways in which it could have gone worse. I rambled, I flew through 2.5 hours of material in about an hour, I lost my place a lot. I'm not certain that I ever formed a train of thought longer than a couple of cars, and I think even those trains were without engine and caboose. Have any of you other instructors had days like that? As I even mentioned in class, I felt like my 'explainer' was broken today, and it certainly was. I'm hoping that I could get some sympathy from other instructors with similar experiences. Okay, I'm going to go drown my disappointment in some coffee! John [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=62837&t=62826 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
