What are you passionate about?

Mark Hayward Question 1: What are you passionate about?

Teaching computers is my biggest passion. I’m a certified Microsoft Office instructor, which usually means teaching in a classroom to students who either want to learn or have been told to take a course for their job. The former are the easiest students to teach. They’ve usually had a chance to use the program and have formed their own questions about it already. But the students who are most fun to teach are the ones who’ve been told they have to learn this stuff. The ones who are reluctant to even walk in the door. Those students are the ones I try and infect with my enthusiasm.

Teaching a good class takes a lot of energy. You explain the concept and show them how to do it. Then they do it themselves and ask you questions. As an instructor, you have to be mentally prepared to answer any and all questions. And I’d rather take the time to explain the concept properly than just skip past it so quickly the student doesn’t have a chance to take it in.

A different type of teaching is by example. I’m sure there are many Moms and Dads around who know this. But when you want something done correctly, then you have to be able to display and demonstrate that action correctly yourself. It’s a very tall order.

For example, at The Working Centre, we had placement students. I would have them type documents, and to save on time I would be incredibly specific about the formatting I wanted. Bold here, underline there. 3 points of space here, Calibri there. I would usually hand the placement student a sheet with hand-written notes all over detailing precisely how I wanted everything formatted. As their teacher, I’d tie in skills learned in class, such as format painter. It’s one of my favourites; one of the greatest commands in MS Word, it allows you to copy formatting and apply it from paragraph to paragraph, document to document. In fact I thought I’d ranted about it’s usefulness before on the blog. (I know I have in the real world!) It’s going on the list!

This kind of teaching has also served me well at the OnTech Computers store. The co-op students need to learn the correct way to do things as quickly as possible. And being 16/17 years old, they’re going to pick things up quickly, regardless. So it’s best to show it right the first time.

I have a lot of knowledge about MS Office, and I love sharing it with others. I’m very proud of my accomplishments in training.