A few years ago it was decided that I should go on the official Tableau Train the Trainer training. We thought it would be a good idea to get me trained up and then I could do all our training myself. So off I went to London to the Tableau HQ to learn how to teach Tableau. I’d been using Tableau for a few years, was pretty good at it, had several certificates and other titles but I was nervous about the training. I knew what I knew pretty well but knew there were areas I wasn’t as strong in as I don’t do a lot of things like maps. My instructor on the course was a Tableau employee that I had had lunch with when I attended my 2nd Tableau conference in Seattle,Sarah Nell-Rodriquez. I remember meeting Sarah and her future husband, Mr Sarah (or Alex as he is also known). We talked a lot about cheese,a little about Whiskey and a lot about Tableau.
The course was a complete life changer for me. It was towards the end of the course when I had an epiphany. We had been going through the official curriculum making notes on how we would teach each part of it, coming up with ideas to illustrate concepts and all that jazz. And it hit me like a thunderbolt, and I remember (and Sarah reminded me of this earlier this year at TC24) that I sat next to her on a sofa in a hotel bar for post learning beers and said “I just realised, you didn’t teach me how to teach tableau, you taught me how to be a teacher”
You know in a film when about 3/4 of the way through the lead suddenly has those flashbacks to all those inconsequential things that happened and now all make sense? Well that was me.
When we talked about ice-breakers – that was to gauge the students skill level, but also to see what they already knew and what they wanted to know so you could adapt/drop content
When we talked about scenarios – that was to develop ways to explain what you knew in different ways.
When Sarah kept prompting us to keep asking the students questions all the time – that was to keep up engagement and to check on where everyone was.
I didn’t learn a single new thing about Tableau on that course, but I learnt how to run a course, how to control the agenda, timekeep. I learnt how to feed of the students, to spot when someone is struggling. I learnt how to spot the students that just didn’t want to be there or had checked out and how to use my time effectively.
I’ve now run internal training course a dozen or more times and have developed my own two day training based on everything I learn from Sarah.
I have just spent the last few weeks putting that again into practice by recording 11 hours of content across 126 videos for @linkedin and my upcoming course. Every single one of those videos has a little bit of what Sarah taught me, and now, you can too.
I am so excited to see that Be Data Lit are offering to bring others along on the teaching journey, I cannot think of a better training experience than this
https://www.bedatalit.com/trainthetrainer
And if you use the code Matt10 you get 10% off!
