This all got me to thinking how on earth I would teach to an audience of such mixed knowledge bases. I remember Marvin saying at the beginning of his first lecture on Friday that he would do his best to cater to our varying backgrounds, and I think he actually did a pretty good job. I imagine that the Daves were pretty bored, but I learned a good deal in that first lesson and it seemed like most of the crowd did, too. It probably helped that this was the second time I was hearing it, because a lot of the content was the same as what Dave Miller taught us in Natural History class. I also caught the pearl of wisdom he threw out about using positive language when you are teaching.
Interestingly, I thought he really struggled to teach a mixed audience how to use Photoshop. I was able to keep up pretty well, although I certainly got lost a couple of times. However, there were a handful of people who were not as familiar with computers and therefore appeared to be lost for most of the time. I wanted to stop and help them out, but I knew that would have resulted in me getting lost and then we'd both be in bad shape. It's hard for me to criticize, because again I just don't know how I would handle such a diverse crowd. Fortunately the groups we get for the programs are pretty much the same age and knowledge level, but it's definitely something to think about in case I end up in an informal setting where I'm trying to teach entire families.
I do see where your coming from and I too got flashbacks from the Dunes. As for the Photoshop stuff. Its really hard to teach that to a class that meets 2 times a week for 9 weeks, so i can only imagine what Marvin was going through.
ReplyDeleteTeaching varied audiences is very difficult. Really the best thing to do would be to split into groups of equal or similar knowledge levels. That is in the classroom. It may or may not have worked for this workshop.
ReplyDeleteEven though I was one of the people who was lost in photoshop, I do appreciate the challenge Marvin had. He probably assumed that I had more computer experience than I do and that things were more self explanatory than they were. It does bring up the subject of how best to deal with different levels because often a classroom teacher is trying to keep the gifted students from being bored and those who are struggling from feeling totally left out and alienated and she or he may have thirty students to deal with. How do you give those kids individual attention and still teach the rest of the class?
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