Challenges

Last week I discussed some of the successes during the marketing and selection phases for the class. This week, I wanted to share some of the challenges faced during the class.

One of the initial frustrations I had was the problem of retention – students grasped concepts in class, they answered related questions, but two days later, they seemed to have forgotten. This situation was further exacerbated by the long breaks that occurred during the already short duration for the class, due to organizational workshops on my end, and examinations for the students. There were two things I learned from this: reviewing the class at the end really is important, and students remember the things that they have to recall multiple times. It also made me realize early on that my curriculum was perhaps a little ambitious.

Another issue that arose later on was one of attendance. I had made clear rules at the start – if you miss three classes for any reason, you’d have to leave the class. To hold true to that rule, I eventually had to remove 4 students from my class – two others eventually left the town and moved to different schools. However, going forward, having a vested interest in place, such as a fee or deposit structure, would definitely go a long way to ensure the student attends class.

One challenge I faced was when I actually tried to learn in a completely application-based manner. For the initial 3-4 weeks, while the computers hadn’t come, I was teaching them theory – what computers are, how they operate etc. By the time the computers arrived, due to the many breaks, we were quite short on time. To expose them to MS Word, I decided to get them to type up and print a letter. My assumption was that they’d struggle, but get through, since they all had exposed a minimum level of experience operating the software during their interviews.

This ended up being a particularly challenging experience due to a myriad of reasons: the students were all at different levels, everyone had different problems, all of which required my individual attention, the more experienced students were bored because they finished quite a bit earlier than those less experienced. Eventually, I had to clarify problems that were common to all students, and involve some of the students in helping out others. However, I think starting with small exercises and building up to a full-fledged letter might have been the better path.