Since I started my new business, one of the ways I’ve been making ends meet is by teaching day-long computer courses for a San Diego training company. Today I taught an advanced class in PowerPoint. I had only three students, and they all were very experienced computer users. Because of a miscommunication, we started the class off without a workbook, so I had to wing it.

I was petrified that these advanced students would eat me alive. I went through the first couple of lessons (the sections I could remember from the last time I taught the advanced class) with them just nodding their heads behind their laptops. “Oh, yeah. Changing bullets. Do it all the time,” one said. “Sure, of course, saving a presentation as a template. Got it.” I was getting more and more nervous. What in the world could these folks learn from me?

So I asked them. “Ok, so what don’t you know? Let’s make a list of all those things you’ve wanted to understand but haven’t.” They started brainstorming, and we came up with a list with things like importing and linking to other Office docs, working with multimedia, working with the master slide.

To make a long post short, we ended up customizing the class to the real things they wanted to know, and *I* ended up learning as much as they did.

For example — Did you know you could highlight a word and increase/decrease the font by holding down CTRL and hitting the bracket keys? To increase: Ctrl + [. To decrease: Ctrl + ]. Amazing. (I know. I need to get out more.)

Each and every time I teach, I learn something. And I also get such a rush when students experience an “aha” moment.
I’m really happy I keep getting the opportunity.