School days

[stonebender]

It could've been worse, I mean there was no bloodshed and no animals were harmed, but the beginning computer class was pretty rough. I had been led to believe, that although it was a beginning computer course most of the people had taken the class before and should have at least a basic familiarity with the computer. They just had some confusion on some of the computer concepts that I would be helping with. Unfortunately there was a very wide spread of computer knowledge/ability. I had one woman who had literally never done anything with the computer and a few people who had managed to do some things, but still are confused by things like how to do attachments in e-mail or download a file. This class was for seniors and people with disabilities, so I expected to need to deal with some accommodations. Anyway two students were pretty severely hearing impaired, but both had lost their hearing late in life so they didn't know any type of sign language. Anyway working with them added a dimension complication and I think I either underestimated my need to multitask in this class or overestimated my ability to do so. I'm trying very hard to be realistic. Most of the students seemed happy with what we could accomplish. I'm positive that the woman who had no computer knowledge was very frustrated with me, but I just couldn't ignore the rest of the class to walk her through everything. I have offered her a one-on-one class to work on basic mouse and keyboard skills. So I can get her up to speed, but she may not be interested after the class she attended. I have some ideas on how to rearrange the class so I can get closer to the students when they need help. Another problem was that I was having trouble seeing the screen from where I was. So it was difficult o give direction. Anyway, I'll work on getting better organized. I have five more classes and then the funding may be ending. I guess this is just another opportunity for growth. :-)

Comments

[redbird]

An opportunity for growth, and it sounds like you did help some of the students. Also, if someone needs one-on-one instruction, it's not your fault that she took a group class instead of trying to arrange for something one-on-one. To be fair, she may not have realized how much attention she needed before taking your class; I hope she accepts your offer.

I am reminded of a neighbor of ours who was trying to get cattitude to give him endless one-on-one computer help, for free; I think he finally either accepted the advice to go to the library or the quite local community college for a class, or at least understood that whether or not he did so, Cattitude was not going to do his computer stuff for him, or answer questions at great length. The key points here being that (a) Cattitude doesn't teach computing, and (b) $neighbor was demanding answers about software Cattitude had never used. I hope that either $neighbor benefited from such a class, or found someone who did offer that sort of tutoring. (I suspect that $neighbor didn't want to pay for it; other people periodically put up posters offering computer help, and even those who were saying "I can fix your computer" might has also been willing to teach, or been able to point him at someone who could. Not "Cattitude is a programmer, therefore ask him to teach me Excel, and to use Word to write a resume for me.")