My Week Teaching an Advanced Photoshop Course
This past week has been interesting, and in many ways a real treat for me. I was independently contracted by an old employer to teach 14 adult [military] students an Advanced Level Photoshop CS4 course. Not only was it an opportunity to impart my knowledge on to a group of people and share my unique perspective and skills with them, but I learned things from them both as artist and as human beings throughout our time together as well.
Also keep forgetting to add my years of experience as a Photoshop course instructor to my resume and about page, which is something I will probably take care of later in the week.
The Course and Material
The class was going to be from Monday-Friday from 9am-5pm and I was to be instructing them from the book Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book. Even if you already know Photoshop, if there is a particular tool or feature you are not very comfortable or familiar with, the training in this book actually works very well for bringing you up to speed and bringing that level of comfort to working with Photoshop.
We managed to cover the majority of the book within the first three days, even while including time to work on independent projects, to break away from the grind of working through the course book.
My Teaching Style
I decided very early on the break the mold of how these type of classes traditionally work after the second day. Normally you would work on the overhead projector and walk and talk the class through the lesson and have them follow along and take questions as needed. That was moving entirely too slow for me, especially since majority of the class was very familiar with Photoshop. I decided to then let the class work through the book at their own pace and give individual help to everyone who needed it while encouraging others to move forward.
I also rewarded more advanced students by challenging them to work on their own independent projects while giving others time to catch up to them on the materials in the book. While doing this I went around and gave critique and advice on their independent work and gave guidance or even a personal lesson in how to accomplish specific techniques they wanted to try. The class instantly became more receptive and comfortable and began to really enjoy coming in every day throughout the course.
I took the time to get to know each of the students on some level and their reasons for wanting to learn more about Photoshop, or how it related to the work they do in the military and how they intended to use the skills they learned. I ask them what the most challenging parts of their projects were, about their strengths in the program and their weaknesses, and what they like to do. I encouraged them to do projects that related to their interest in someway to help them break through their creative block.
Nearly every student produced a piece of work they wanted to immediately post to their facebook profile! Also everyone in the class even one of the most Advanced Photoshop users I’ve seen, learned something new, both from directly, and from working through the book.
Conclusions
I’ve done many stints as a course instructor for Photoshop, Dreamaweaver, and Web Design with this company before but this was probably the most enjoyable class that I taught. Some of that had to do with the fact I was not working with absolute beginners, that could really see the value of the lessons, some of it was the type of individuals themselves, but mostly I feel that I’ve reached a place where I feel compelled to directly participate in the evolution of individuals creatively. I want to be a part of their story somehow. Tomorrow is mostly a “lab day” and I will be awarding them their certificates of completion from the course. I’m actually looking very forward to it!
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