Master Lesson Series (MLS): Welcome and How?

Master Lesson Series

I have been a teacher for a long time.  In all those years of teaching technology/software application courses, seminars, and workshops, the most regularly asked question is, “How?”  I would like to think I adequately explain the “Why?” during my lesson introductions.  But, no matter what I am teaching it seems that the project on the other end of the lesson is what causes the most confusion for students.  I firmly believe that it isn’t the software or the hardware that causes the most difficulty, or even my teaching that causes problems for students (because why would I think that?)  I think that the problem lies within a disconnect between the students learning and the doing.  I have found that some people are very good at learning and some are very good at doing but the successful students are those that are very good at putting learning and doing together.  The purpose of this Master Lesson Series will be to link learning and doing.  I intend on helping you build something awesome!  Not just once, but over and over again, at your own pace.

Luckily for you I have many years of using textbooks, being a student, and teaching under my belt.This experience has helped me to understand that the best way to create learners that “do” is to start the ball rolling for them and show the student how to begin.  By simply going through the motions of creating a project, I can push my students out of the nest, so to speak.  I build the project step-by-step until sooner or later the students begin to working on their own and at their own pace. 

 

Students that appear to grasp the lesson quickly have a skill that the slower students do not have. 

Frankly, their rapid successes are due to their ability to recall prior learning.  Depending on how much information that was picked up (or reactivated) in the instructional part of the lesson or, more importantly, how well the instruction has linked itself to prior learning will determine the amount of time it takes students to begin working on their own.  Rapid success students are those that have the ability to link past learning (perhaps in a similar setting, software, or subject matter) to the task at hand.  These students are not necessarily smarter than you, they are very talented at taking chunks of learning from the past and applying it to whatever they happen to be doing right now.  Think of this in terms of using MS Office.  Once you are familiar with any one of the programs in the MS Office suite, you are already familiar with the basics in all the other programs in the MS suite.  This is one of Microsoft’s greatest successes – the knowledge that familiarity across all the software in the MS Office Suite will keep bringing people back because of its ease of use.

Getting the Ball Rolling

In this Master Lesson Series, I will use video to go step-by-step into the creation of a project such as a newsletter in Publisher, a brochure in Word, an Excel Spreadsheet, or a PowerPoint presentation.  Each module, or chunk,  within a project will cover only one topic or concept within that project.  For example, the use of kerning is a staple skill for creating a newsletter in MS Publisher.  This skill can be utilized in other software programs such as MS Word.  Once the module on kerning is available it can then be integrated into other lesson on creating a brochure, but after you have completed a   Remember, at the bottom of each lesson module, you can ask questions publicly or you can always email me at dr.daniel.robinson71@gmail.com.

module in a previous lesson you can either review the module or skip it.

Secondly, what I will do is to demonstrate the modules in comparable software (when applicable) so that you can utilize the software you have on hand.  For example, I will take you step-by step through how to build a newsletter in MS Publisher, MS Word, and Google Docs.  If you prefer different software for the project, request it in the comments below.  I will attempt to accommodate your needs as much as possible.

Finally, as the lesson modules grow in number, I will list them in the blog index and on my website.  I plan to group the modules by topic, by software, and by project.  As I have said repeatedly, the modules are free to use at your own pace.

Take Away

The Master Lesson Series (MLS) will guide readers through stages of building different projects.  Each lesson will consist of one chunk or piece of the lesson to master.  Those individual chunks can then be utilized together to create complete projects.  These MLS will constantly be adding new lessons that can be learned, reviewed, or skipped based on personal need.