“I will teach you to love and to suffer”, or IT Education Cheat Sheet

Having graduated from St. Petersburg Bonch (aka University of Telecommunications) eight years ago, I did not suspect that I myself would be engaged in teaching. Nevertheless, my hesitant, and perhaps not techno soul at all, brought me to the position of teacher in a rather large office in St. Petersburg, which is developing a wide variety of software for mobile operators. My more than five-year working career ends there, and in hot pursuit I decided to give some simple tips that, I dare to hope, make life easier for those who need to pass on their precious knowledge for official or other reasons. They contain a few basic things related to training, which now seem obvious to me, but at the dawn of teaching activity were new. Let's move on to the tips.

1. Always explain to the experimental student why he needs all this.


From the experience of the trainings I have completed and passed: the correctly delivered message “why” allows to increase the return on the learner by several times. And, for example, the initially nonsense-minded person, sent by the boss simply “for show”, is quite interested in the process up to the generation of new ideas.

2. Do not be lazy to give an introductory and necessary basic explanation


For this case, I have a small illustration from life.
When I was a technical development engineer (Even before teaching. And do not ask what this position means - I still do not have a clear explanation), my immediate boss decided to devote me to the mystery of working with databases. To do this, he opened some kind of simple web-muzzle that contained a plate with some data, and said: "Here is the data." Then he opened some kind of interface, and said: “If you type here a combination of select asterisk frome loading semicolon, then you will get the same data.” By performing this action, I really got the data. This ended the training. No tasks related to the use of this knowledge have been received. And only two years later after taking SQL courses, I realized what it was. But the feeling of painful bewilderment that covered me after this explanation was amazing in terms of information, I will always remember. So to clarify the context and give an understanding of the main idea - a thing simply necessary for successful learning.

3. Filter student questions


The meaning of this paragraph echoes the well-known expression "One fool can ask so many questions that a hundred wise men will not answer them." If at the beginning of my teaching activity I took it for granted that I needed to answer all the questions I received, after some time (mainly thanks to the advice of my more experienced colleagues) I removed a significant part of the questions explicitly or veiledly by the set counter: “And for what purpose do you Are you interested in? ” Also, something will be revealed later in the course, something does not apply to the subject, and so on. As a result, the bottom line remains really important, which can expand the competence of the teacher himself, thanks to a question that looked at the subject from a different point of view.

4. Remember to be an expert


In this case, an expert means a professional who can speak with the same professionals in the usual jargon, but at the same time able to explain complex things without using specific terminology even to an amateur. I myself have repeatedly been in similar situations, because In addition to specialists in training, I regularly had newcomers without much experience in the required field, who needed to explain things quite complicated without using the “bird tongue”. Well, it is obvious that you should not show your superiority to students by scattering obscure terms - this will definitely not benefit the process. In principle, I follow the rule: "The simpler - the better, but not easier than necessary."

5. Avoid overly detailed


Direct connection with paragraph 2. But if it was about the necessary minimum of information, then here we will talk about enough. Due to the specifics of the field of teaching and a fair amount of data, an attempt to “embrace the immense” can lead to clutter of consciousness and difficulty in the further use of data. In some of our decisions, the expense of settings went into the thousands - naturally, within the framework of the training, it was simply impossible to explain all of them, and by and large it was not necessary. Again, referring to the second point: with a sufficient understanding of the general ideology and basic processes, the student will be able to self-educate and find the information he needs to solve specific problems that arise.

6. Let's get the most out of practice


Trite, but without it in any way. In order to learn how to do something, you need to do it. And it is best to do this during training, where your schools cannot lead to disastrous consequences. The direct boss already mentioned by me once before his business trip gave me the tsiskovskogo router of epic proportions and ordered me to configure for a certain abstract task, in which the word “loop” appeared. Concluding this wish in the tradition of "Gentlemen of Fortune": "I will come - I will check." And I honestly tried to set it up: I ate a bunch of manuals, pretty much hung out on thematic forums, carefully studied configs on the router. But due to the fact that before that I knew very little about routers, and even - IMPORTANT! - did not specify the statement of the problem; I did not complete it. It was a shame. Nonetheless,

That's all for now.
If someone has questions on the topic - I will answer with pleasure. Constructive criticism is welcome.

UPD (thx to volum_separatum ): “Encourage (or even encourage) students to ask as specific questions as possible. Firstly, this eliminates the need for the student to read the student’s thoughts, re-read the program in search of an error (if there is a problem with the program), and start detailed explanations from the very beginning. Secondly, if a student tries to specify the question, it is likely that he will not have to ask it either - he will come up with a solution, or he will understand where to look for the answer. And it’s more pleasant and easier to answer a very specific question. ”

Also popular now: