Lately I have been called to give a few lunch and learn sessions where I work. Teaching newer developers isn't something completely new to me, I've mentored co-op students several times over the last 9 or 10 years. But actually taking a specific topic and explain to a group of individuals, is quite new to me.
It can be quite a daunting task to give a presentation of a topic to a bunch of people who know nothing ( or relatively nothing ) about a topic and be responsible for how they perceive and learn a topic. I find myself taking a few steps back to make sure i am completely neutral, and factual, just to make sure that i am explaining facts ( and giving opinion) and not just giving opinions.
I've always enjoyed sharing knowledge, it does two things, one it helps others do the same, which benefited me in my early days ( having people take the time to teach me ), and it forces me to actually understand what i am talking about. Now don't get me wrong, you can understand without having to explain stuff. But in my case, i tend to understand better when i try to explain something to someone else.
For a long time, teaching was something i was HORRIBLY ( and i do mean horribly ) bad at. Ask anyone that worked with me the first couple years of my career. i had that typical "If i understand it, why can't you understand it mentality". After having done 3 separate session since the beginning of 2009 and 1 or 2 late 2008, i got some feedback from the attendees, and the feedback has been pretty positive. I guess as i have matured in my career, i have learned some different skills passively.
anyways, this was one of my goals anyways, to help my team learn some new skills, i guess i am taking advantage to improve on my teaching skills.
2 comments:
Although I agree that you did were "If I did it, why can't you do it too" type of guy when I first started working at Mediagrif: It actually helped me over the years.
People needs to learn by themselves more than ever... It's a shame that it seems to be a 'dying' skill.
A class like that is a way to kick-start the learning process on solid bases, but afterward, they will need to pick up the documentation (if applicable) and learn by themselves the more advances topics.
Let's face it, those people cannot rely on you for every little question or problems they will face in the coming months: They have to learn how to learn by themselves.
the joys of young developers. They think they know everything, and figure that since they are young people with more experience should already know all what you know and more.
the things you learn with age/experience.
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