T3: How to Teach This Course

Teaching this course requires a paradigm shift in how we approach the technology classroom. Instead of teaching a specific software, we teach a mindset. Instead of being the expert at the front of the room, we become the lead learner walking among the students. To teach this course, we must take an attitude of adaptability ourselves.

Get Rid of the Expert

The first thing that must change is playing the expert. I teach technical writing. Being an expert in writing required a great deal of study, but once I mastered it, I only had to keep up with trends and minor changes. At one time, I was an expert in technology. Keeping that expertise required constant practice to keep up with continuous changes. When I went back to school, I did not keep up with those changes for a couple of years. In that short time, I lost my expert status.

To keep up this expertise while trying to create lectures, create and rework courses, and grade assignments is quite overwhelming. Consequently, we cannot play the expert; do not even try. To stay current in a software program, someone must work with it often. When teaching a course that covers eight to ten software programs, it would take ten to twenty hours a week just to keep up with the changes and the experience needed to claim expertise in each of these software packages—time few of us have. Instead, we need to take the role of lead learner. This role can be uncomfortable for those of us who like the power of the expert role. Quite often, it requires us to say, “I do not know; let us figure it out.”

Taking this role, though, helps a student take the right approach to the challenges of adaptability. Since I do not pretend to be an expert, they do not feel like they must be one either. It helps them focus on being adaptable rather than obtaining that “expert” label. Since adaptability is a much more obtainable goal, they are more likely to succeed in the course.

I tell my students that I am not an expert in many of these software programs. I do promise them, however, that I have done the exercises recently. I also promise them that, if they have an issue, I will do my best to help them find an answer. I challenge them to figure things out that I cannot. They love it when they can find an answer more quickly than I can.

Instructor tip: I find it important to do the exercises myself shortly before teaching the software. That way, the processes are fresh in my mind. Additionally, I can catch anything that might have changed. With software being constantly updated these days, often in the background, an exercise that worked well last year might not work so well or work the same way now.

Focus on Teaching Themselves

Another fundamental change is how I interact with students. In a writing classroom, I give step-by-step instructions on how to write in a genre, like a recommendation report. I would explain exactly what they need to do and exactly how to do it. When it comes to teaching adaptability, I only give hints. They learn to be adaptable in the struggle to figure the issue out on their own. That means I must allow them to struggle with the exercises. It is tempting just to show them; it is so much easier. However, I am robbing them of practicing the very skill I am trying to teach them when I tell them how to do it.

At the same time, if the exercises are too hard, students just give up. Make the exercises challenging but not overwhelming.

Workshop or Online

Teaching adaptability sometimes requires a new approach to the technology classroom. I find that this course works best as either a workshop course, with plenty of in-class work time, or an online course. As a workshop course, there are benefits and disadvantages. Some students do not like coming to class at all and would rather work on their own. However, some will attend and ask for help the minute they hit a little snag which can be a problem since they try to rely on the instructor rather than try to figure it out. The course has also worked wonderfully well as an online course since students will work harder to figure it out on their own. I have more students drop and fail, though, when I teach it online. You may have to try new teaching formats to ensure better results.