Hand-holding vs "Google it"? 13

[ParabolicTet]

I provide IT and engineering tech. support to mechanical engineers. Often these folks want to learn more about some new programming language. They expect me to prepare a lecture and teach them how to program. This seems so inefficient to my method of just googling it.

In a few hours I can pick up the basics from following some online tutorial. I can learn at my pace and focus on things I know I will use. With the classroom approach it is in one ear and out the next. Unless you actually apply the knowledge you will quickly forget it. Plus you will learn so many things that you will likely never use.

I wonder why are so many engineers fixated on classroom learning vs. self learning ? I find it kind of annoying cause it's not something I expect of an engineer.

 

[zeusfaber]

Often these folks want to learn more about some new programming language. They expect...... I wonder why.

The perils of having been labelled as "whiny" in an earlier thread! You could just read this one as a query about whether Mechanical Engineers tend towards a different preferred learning style from IT people.

PTet: Does this apparent fixation with classroom learning spread across your whole engineering community, or are you looking at a minority? If the latter (and this is 100% pure nosiness; I don't know where I'm going with it), do you know enough about the people in question to tell if they have other traits in common?

A.

 

[CWB1]

PTet has his own job to do. He (she?) has no more obligation to teach engineers code than the engineers have to design the marketing director's new lake house.

Within the boundaries of ethics, legal, and other basic limitations, if he's collecting a paycheck he's obligated to do what his supervisor asks. If my boss asked me to I'd start in on that lake house immediately. If folks outside his chain of command are asking for something unrealistic or unwanted, he needs to direct them to his supervisor - simple. The "not my job" attitude is a great way of getting canned and blacklisted.

Employers large and small alike that I've worked for or closely with have all occasionally offered similar cross-training like the OP's describing. Tech skills are usually handled by the IT folks bc typically they are the SMEs in that area.

 

[SLTA]

I learn much faster from a live person in a setting where I can ask questions.

So much of what google gives as answers is complete nonsense, and as a beginner in a subject, I wouldn't have the knowledge to separate the wheat and the chaff.

Is it really so horrible to be asked to help other folks learn? If it's not your calling, then fine, say no thank you and suggest an IT friend who is also interested in teaching.

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[TLHS]

Is it your job to help with this? If it isn't, you're free to say that you don't have time to help with that.

If it is, and you've been told to give a class as part of your job, try doing it and use it as a chance to increase your skills. I'd love to get a chance to pass along my skills to others and actually have an okay from management to spend hours on it.

If you haven't been told to train people in a certain way, but it's within your purview, then find your own way to help. "Just google it" isn't really constructive for someone starting on a task. You can't google things if you don't have the context to ask the right questions. Rather, you can, but it's not necessarily straightforward or necessarily a good use of people's time. I don't want someone at work trying to reinvent the wheel when someone else could just explain it to them.

So if this is something that keeps happening, build a resource that people can use. Write a few page document explaining how they can find more help, buy a couple of books for the office, find some general youtube tutorials that people could watch, make a list of a handful of websites. If you can hit it from a few angles, it will help people out.

Then if people come and ask you general questions, you can point them towards your document as a starting point.

If more formal training would be helpful and it's not really in your scope to provide, or you don't have the time, propose that people get brought in to do lunchtime training for a few weeks. Or point people towards classes they could take.

If someone comes to you and is legitimately asking how to improve at skills you're good at, at least point them at how they can improve those skills. "Google it" is basically just telling people to fuck off and figure it out.

 

[GregLocock]

I employed a graphics artist to interpret the situation for me

His speling is worster than mine.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[ornerynorsk]

Star for SLTA. As social creatures, I believe most people tend to enjoy group osmosis learning rather than reading dry drivel and slogging through it on your own. I would think being asked to teach a subject of your expertise in an informal setting to other professionals would be a compliment. Teaching others builds not only your own confidence, but Q&A often stretches your own thinking and perspective, as well. Good opportunity to serve coffee and rolls on company time and take things up a notch!

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

As an engineer, I vastly prefer a structured classroom environment to self-learning... as long as the classroom moves at a pace that I'm comfortable with (not too fast, not too slow). And therein lies the rub... pace.

But I'll still take a class if I can.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[verymadmac]

Regarding classroom learning vs. self learning
For many of the design offices at I have worked in, the fastest productivity improvement one could have made would have been to send everyone (the engineers) on a MS word course, then everyone would have been close to being on the same page in terms of basic skill sets & understanding, that would have enabled the use of common templates without people spending 10 minutes each time breaking all the features (ok something about herding cats may come to mind). Googling it works but thata doesn't give much uniformity in skill sets.

 

[SandCounter]

A "classroom" explanation sets a standard of expectations.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[zcfactor626]

I worked in a support role and sometimes got asked to attend another department staff meeting to give some training. Alternatively, someone from another department would come my staff meetings for training.

There’s multiple reasons why these training sessions occur. One scenario can be one employee wanting to help out their co-workers to learn something. Another scenario can be an employee that wants to do something that will look good on their year-end review by bringing in someone to teach. Note that this looks good for both sides. Furthermore, another situation has to do with a lapse in understanding or communication in a certain subject that resulted in wasted time and money.

Let’s look at it from a different angle instead of a classroom and apply it to meetings. Maybe no meetings whatsoever, so employees have to read every new company standard, bulletin, or work procedure individually with no q&a. Trust me that would be disastrous.

Alternatively apply it to a sales engineer. Let’s say I will not offer any onsite presentations on my company services. Therefore, I will just tell you to google the website and/or email you a brochure. I would be out of a job.

Whether you think it’s your job or not to offer training session is something to discuss with your supervisor.

 

[GregLocock]

"Maybe no meetings whatsoever, so employees have to read every new company standard, bulletin, or work procedure individually with no q&a. Trust me that would be disastrous. "

Um, those of us who telecommute are in exactly that situation. And it doesn't hurt at all.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[FeX32]

Some/most people (engineers included) need some form of guidance to improve their confidence in the subject matter. Whether this is a classroom or a senior engineer's active guidance is irrelevant. There are some engineers that are willing to learn for themselves and have inherent motivation to do so - but most of the time still need some sort of feedback. Not always but most of the time.
If you are working on something completely new, R&D for example there may not be a mentor to guide you - but likely the subject matter is still within a general realm of expertise - and is reviewed (this is called peer review - which gives you feedback).

If it is part of your job to mentor more junior engineers, it is your duty to recognize the mentorship process - you can not just tell them to "google it like I do". Even if you recommend online tutorials - directing them so is not the same as simply saying "google it".

 

[lacajun]

Sometimes it's easier to have someone study it, condense it, and present it to at least get a foundation to build on.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

http://nspe-co.org/events.php

 

[TenPenny]

Instead of commenting on the original post, I'll suggest that ParabolicTet simply google the concept, and see what others have to say about it.

 

[IRstuff]

Anyone care to take a wild guess what the topmost hit in Google is for this? ;-)

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[FeX32]

jeez, just ask Alexa and be done with it.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

"Alexa, ask Siri to tell me what Google says..."

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[IRstuff]

http://www.nationalsoftskills.org/not-surprising-thing-google-learned-employees/

provides some insights into what a company needs of their employees to be successful:

In an article in today’s Washington Post written by Valerie Strauss, The surprising thing Google learned about its employees –and what it means for today’s students, the Post explains what Google learned about its employees through their own research on hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s founding in 1998. This results of this research project, called Project Oxygen, shocked everyone by concluding that among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM skills came in dead last.

The other seven qualities were all soft skills and include:

Being a good coach
Communication skills
Possessing insights into others and different values and points of view
Empathy toward one’s colleagues
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Drawing conclusions (making connections across complex ideas)

The OP would do well to see how they score on this scale.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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