INSTRUCTIONAL TUTORIALS

When I first started doing software demos for Industrial Design classes at the University of Alberta, I had very little teaching experience. I shudder to think of all the mistakes I made.

A big one was assuming that people can learn by watching rather than doing. For my first Rhino demo, I had the entire class sit at the front of the computer lab and watch me go through the user interface, and then curve creation, to surface extrusions, all the way through boolean operations. I was dumbfounded when they returned to their computers and couldn’t do it for themselves.

I only made that mistake once.

Maybe an even bigger mistake I made early on was assuming that everyone would take to Rhino the way I did. Whenever I learn a new command in Rhino (and somehow I’m still learning new commands in Rhino…), it just sticks with me. I remember that the command is available to me, and if I can’t remember exactly how it works the second time around, I can usually figure it out just based on the command prompts.

Most CAD newbies don’t operate that way. Nearly all of my students took copious quantities of notes during a demo. This is difficult to do while you’re trying to follow the instructor at the front of the class and keep up on your own model at your workstation.

To make the very stressful task of learning new software easier, I began to develop notes for each demo - a written record, with pertinent screen captures, of each and every command and concept covered. I made these available in PDF format, and my students soon learned that they really could abandon note-taking and focus solely on the lesson.

As my demos became more refined, I developed an entire Introduction to Rhino tutorial series.

While still a technician at the U of A, I began to develop more formal tutorials, and populating a Tutorials folder on the computer lab’s main server.

The intention of the tutorial CNC Panel Router 101 was not to train students to become CNC operators. Rather, it was to illuminate the machining process, enabling designers to consider and address manufacturing capabilities and constraints early in the design stage, and empowering students to interact knowledgeably with service bureaus and machinists.

As well, I had recently discovered a passion for GIF imagery, and employed GIFs wherever possible to make what could be pretty dry material at least somewhat interesting and engaging.

To complement the photo studio that I built at the back of the Industrial Design workshop at the University of Alberta, I created Digital Photography 101. It was a response to the apprehension that many students had in experimenting with the high-end digital SLR cameras the studio contained, and emerging technology in general. The tutorial explains the mechanisms by which a camera gathers light, and how best to control them in particular situations. Containing over 200 original photographs and graphic images, I focused on imagery that would be familiar to our students, taking photographs of a disassembled power drill hanging on the wall outside of the computer lab, for example, and taking many shots in the photo studio using the equipment available to the students.

Other instructional tutorials I made while I was a technician at the University of Alberta include Digital Graphics 101 and Gears 101. My background as the first ever graduate of the Computing Science route in Industrial Design came in quite handy in my understanding of the concepts I was trying to convey.

I went on to make dozens of tutorials while I was a sessional instructor at the Alberta College of Art and Design. An overview of some of those can be found here.