Teaching Linux+ from scratch

Tess Sluijter

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Apr 1, 2020
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unixerius.nl
Hey everyone, just wanted to share a bit of my experiences with teaching Linux+ so far.

The group I teach are a dozen young adults with varying IT experience. They range from 16-32, from experienced hacker to IT newbie. Two of them have a lot of Linux experience already, more than I do in some cases! A few others have had a passing interest in the OS, while the rest are fresh / new learners. Getting and keeping them all interested and motivated is an interesting balance :D

The class is an "Introduction to Linux", whose structure and objectives were meant to align with the Linux+ exam. One thing that daunted me was the sheer amount of information that is covered by the Linux+ exam objectives. We're taking students who have no prior work experience in IT and are working them towards a cert that usually tests for 1-3 years of work experience as a Linux admin! The way things are going, it looks like we'll need 15-odd classes to cover all the materials, ringing in at 5-6 hours each, plus self-study and homework for the students.

Offsetting that workload against the commercial classes made me doubt myself. How can commercial trainers ever expect to cram all this stuff in with a 40-hour week of classes?! Luckily one of my students reminded me of what I said a few lines back: "that's because their students already have experience". Good point :)

The school didn't spring for CompTIA's materials, so I'm making my own. Making my own course materials has been stressful to say the least. It's like I'm running a marathon, while constantly trying to stay ahead of the group who's on my heels :D The good part is that I'm learning a lot while prepping my classes! There's a few subjects on the exam that I've never touched on in my professional career.
 
I've been there a time or two. In my past, I've redeveloped an 10.5 and 18 month programs, pretty much on the fly, with changes to regulations pushing everything. Totally have been there. But one thing I've learned is as long as you can keep to a process - choosing curriculum, finding good activities that teach course concepts, then evaluating (including writing all my own exams) and building good labs that are play-tested and ready for the classroom, is once you get it going, it's not that hard to maintain.

You have templates and functional labs, questions/answers for the prep testing now. SO when it comes time to re-organize for the next iteration of the course, it's not so much work the next go.

I know, without CertMaster, I've had to really struggle getting content organized and build good question banks for tests/cert practice. That was always a challenge.

/r
 
Thanks for sharing Rick :) I appreciate it!

> I know, without CertMaster, I've had to really struggle getting content organized and build good question banks for tests/cert practice. That was always a challenge.

This one. In about a week's time I need to run my group through another set of practice tests, so it's time to start scrounging :D