Teaching Cisco Discovery Semester 1

[NJ17]

Hi!

I have been working, mostly on a helpdesk, for over 8 years and have been offered an opportunity to teach in the evening at a Cisco networking Academy. This is completely new to me and I was wondering if any of the instructors (and of course non-instructors )have any advice on the best way to deliver each chapter? My concern is to try and do more than just read from from the online material,but at the same time not do too much extra and run out of time?

 

[Quadratic]

If you're really new to the Cisco world, frankly I don't think you should take such a position. I was a student in a series of Cisco courses in college where the instructor wasn't much stronger on the theory than we were, and had minimal real-world experience in the Cisco world. The result was a really bad experience, where we couldn't benefit from any meaningful lectures or have anyone to put the new material into perspective in a real-world scenario. I believe that if you're going to teach the CCNA material (I'm assuming that's what you'd be doing?), you should at least have that level of certification or the ability to obtain it.

CCNP, CCDP

 

[Cluebird]

For the CNAP, you should should have a regional academy that trains you in the methodology to deliver the curriculum if you are a local academy instructor. You will need to have a CCAI certification and your CCNA as soon as possible. You should also have as much Cisco experience as you can get. While the curriculum is very strong, a weak instructor can make for a horrible academy experience. Since the curriculum is online, the students should review the material prior to class so you can spend as much time as possible with labs and use mini-lectures to reinforce important topics. Personally, I'd highly encourage you to get to the CCNP level prior to teaching at the CCNA level. There is sooooo much more understanding of what you're doing with Cisco once you have your CCNP. CCNAs tend to be very dangerous on production networks!

HTH

 

[CiscoGuy33]

NJ17,

I agree with Cluebird and Quadratic, you should at the very least be a CCNA or have the experience to be able to pass the CCNA before you teach a Cisco Academy class.

I have taught in a Cisco Academy since 1999 and I always make my own Power Points by going through the online chapters and doing screen captures for the pictures used and tried to keep verbage to just the key points, just enough to remind me what to dicuss as we go over the slide!!

Cisco does provide Power Points but they need to be expanded to cover the chapters correctly.

Cisco does have a lot of information, Power Points, Labs etc online to help you teach these classes!

Always try to add "real world" experience to your lectures, even if you have to research the subject and get it from other sources, the students can read the curreculum - try to ADD TO IT !!!!!!

You also want to do as many hands on labs both those in the curreculum and others that you may find online - hands on is what it is all about!!!

NEVER, NEVER read from the online curreculum or from a text book - students are paying for you to lecture and that should be from YOUR EXPERIENCE !!!

Good luck and I hope this helps !!!!

E.A. Broda
CCNA, CCDA, CCAI, Network +