Since I do not have any teaching experience as of yet (unless you count helping my grandparents with EVERY computer problem), I dug into the files to my sophomore year at NGU when I was enrolled in an intro to technology class. I was a sport management major, so the purpose of this class was to give us a crash course on programs such as photoshop, indesign, and even video stuff that is becoming more and more prevalent in the athletic management world.
The class itself wasn’t too difficult. Most of it was terminology with a few projects thrown in, such as making a commercial for television as well as a radio spot. The real problem came when the professor brought in a guest instructor to teach the class how to use the program indesign. For those who are not familiar, indesign is the progam which is used by a majority of publishers that print magazines, brochures, books, anything for print. The program is anything but user friendly.
When we came into class that day, we noticed that something was up because the middle-eastern man we were used to seeing in front of the class was missing in action. Instead there stood a woman with glasses and a very sarcastic sense of humor. When she told us what the plan was, we were pretty confident that we could handle it. Heck we had been using computers and processing programs since high school how hard could it be? We were quickly humbled.
The project itself was not hard; develop a one page magazine layout advertising your favorite “whatever”. But the twist was we had to use Indesign, and up to this pint, I didn’t even know such a program existed. Needless to say, we got through the project fine. And a project that I though was worthless ended up helping me because I use indesign on almost a daily basis now. The problem with the section of the course was the instruction.
For the most part, we taught ourselves. The teacher had little patience for starters, and it was very apparent. At many points she was out of the classroom and working on her other duties. So many times, asking questions was, well out of the question. In a way it wasn’t her fault, she wasn’t getting paid to teach the class, so she wasn’t obligated to stay. The problem with this part of the course was the program was too complex for a student who wasn’t familiar with technology. Now a days, that is rare, but a few years ago, it was common.
Perhaps the positive that came out of this was it did introduce the class to a new program. Overall it was a good idea to introduce us to the adobe work programs, but the course needed an overhaul. Instead of having a teacher who wasn’t paid to teach the class, arrange it to have two teachers who split the semester and pay them both. That will ensure that the teacher will atleast feel somewhat obligated to help the students.
