13 April Reflections: Students Applying Complex Concepts

Transcribed from hand-written notes-

13 April Reflections:

Students mentioned that shortly after they attended the ‘Advanced SA Course’ (re: class took place on 2/23-2/25,) they got the chance to apply some of the skills (trouble-shooting & fixes) they learned in the class.  They explained that they wouldn’t have known what to do without the knowledge they gained from the class.  They would have been stuck with a broken system, but instead they were able to recover and enable positive system function.

5/1/2015 further reflection: 

I am so pleased that every time I have a chance to interact with these students (totaling 6-7+ weeks over 8 months, of often at least 5-9 hours each day) they show that they are progressing and able to apply concepts they have learned in the past.  Instructor works more as a facilitator/observer, asking engaging questions that force students to think through what they are trying to accomplish.  Additionally, instructor engages in 1 on 1 conversation to constantly sharpen student’s system knowledge.  

Acting as a ‘Coach,’ the instructor (me,) works to keep pushing each student so that they grow in confidence of what they are doing and on how to make quick decisions.  Students are growing in their deep understanding of concepts they have learned and are getting used to the constant drilling by their ‘Coach’ to provide answers to questions on a variety of topics.

5/8/2015 further reflection:

Instructor knows that he is hard on students, and that a ‘coaching’ approach may be too unconventional for use with some students but thus far it seems to be working quite well.  Students appear happy to be challenged on material.  In general they appear to look forward to ‘what is going to be thrown at them’.  Coach and student relationship has been successful because there is an understood respect for one-another, and a pseudo-peer-expert view of one another.  Students and coach will take on challenges together, as they talk through why they are doing what they doing with the software, experimentation, trouble-shooting, etc.  Student defers to Coach on deeper system aspects; such as details, software interaction matters, and system specification matters.

I have been working on allowing or forcing more breaks for the students when working on the system.  I realize that a ‘coaching’ perspective with the drilling of many questions and inquiries of them can be very tiring (rewarding for them, but exhausting as well).  So I have begun leaving them for long periods (~20+ minutes) and/or talking to them about the system away from the software… with hopes that this will enable them to feel confidence in what they are working, and that they know what they are doing, while having a Coach/SME that is around and available if needed.