The SquizLog

Training Tip: Focus on the Person

"Move your focus from the task to the person", said the trainer, moving as she said this to emphasise the importance of the shift.

This advice, from the instructor of a Train the Trainer course about six years ago, obviously made an impression on me at the time and I've tried to put it into practice ever since with varying degrees of success.

Tomorrow will mark the end of my two week stint of teaching a class of students everything there is to know about Java and J2EE. Well, as much as one can hope to achieve in that vein within a fortnight, anyway! Fortunately the course is well-structured with case study exercises interspersed with discussions, for which their are accompanying slides.

Having slides to guide a presentation or discussion can sometimes backfire, however. As I was approaching the point today where I was about to introduce JSTL, I remembered that the slides for that topic consisted of a dull collection showing the syntax for all of the tags. Hardly the stuff to inspire a class discussion. So, I remembered the advice from years ago and decided that a demo would do a better job of keeping the students' attention and helping them learn the benefits of using JSTL tags rather than JSP scriptlets. Then I was able to skip quickly through the slides, confident that the important message had got through.

So, my tip to other trainers is: beware of the "presentation slides trap"; be prepared to diverge from the sequence they imply for the sake of the students' learning experience.

Posted to Software Development, Teaching by Keith Pitty