I am sitting in an all day class on building mobile apps. You may ask yourself, if I am sitting in class, what am I doing writing a blog post. To tell you the truth, I am asking myself the very same question. I really wish I was adequately engaged in the class. I was early on in the day. But somehow, it all went to hell after lunch.
Surprisingly enough, my problem is not a food coma. I ate a proteinful lunch, including a top-off of caffeine. I am wide awake and functional. So what’s the problem? Why am I and several of my fellow classmates, completely checked-out? In my not-so-humble opinion, the teacher is at fault.
What is the teacher doing wrong? First and foremost, he doesn’t seem to believe in breaks. That means hours upon hours of him rattling off code in our general direction. No time to pause and process. Not even time to take a bio break without missing critical content.
I have taught all-day classes and admittedly, it is hard. Attention invariably wanders. Especially after lunch. I have found that the best way to manage a long day’s worth of content is to continually read the audience. Too many glassy eyes? Take a break. It doesn’t even need to be a long break. A two-minute long stretch/stand break is better than nothing.
The teacher did do some things right. He did give us plenty of time for hands-on coding in the class. And at first he was really responsive to calls for help. But, as the day went on, he pretty much just pushed through. At one point he asked the class if anyone was confused. Several of us (myself included) raised our hands. Did he ask us what confused us? Did he back up and go back over the material he had just covered? No and no.
Why did he bother to ask whether we confused? I guess he just meant it rhetorically. Speaking only for myself, that is when I checked out. I was lost and he continued to just power through with new material. Sadly, that means that I only got half of the material I signed up for. The good news? the class was free. But my time isn’t.
It’s true that I could have just gotten up and left. But that felt really rude to me. So I stayed. But, I did take the time to kvetch about it.