Hi, I have approximately 10 in-class hours to teach Excel to my students. The way I taught it last year was dry and boring. I'm hoping you can help me make the syllabus more exciting. If you have a method that works well, or if you have an idea for an interesting tutorial please can you let me know? My students are 18+
Many thanks
maybe gear it towards sports scores or console game scores?
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Ford
Thank you, I may be able to get 1 class out of that suggestion
well maybe fantasy football, or some such?
keep track of what potions/upgrades/scores you need in a pc game to get to the next level?
I have seen quite a few questions in here along those lines.
Keep track of music/movie collections
monitor weight gain/loss
have a recipe table that lets you select a meal/cake/whatever, and have the table extract and list all the ingredients needed
track/monitor mileage on your car, or the affect of different meds you take
hmm here's a thought.
Ask them to each list 1 or 2 of their fav hobbies/topics, and then see if you/them can come up with a way excel could make it easier for them.
Keep the WIIFM in mind (whats in it for me)
Thanks, some good suggestions there
Try to tell a story with each function you teach. For instance, I have been teaching excel classes at my job. One of the classes is on VLOOKUP. I teach it by introducing it as a love story. The protagonist Mr. Lookup_value, goes to the party/club "Table_array" to look for his true love, he sees her across the room "Column_ind_num", and he always brings his wingwan Mr. "0"/Mr. False to make sure he hasn't had too much to drink and gets an exact match. And then we talk about formatting as a possible wall/barrier Mr. Lookup Value might need to get through/beyond.
Then when we switch to practicing the vlookup we go over some short cuts to speed their work. IE. CTRL down , ctrl shift up , that sort of thing. (the practice sheet we use is over 23,000 rows).
These little tricks can seem like magic to beginners, so maybe you could weave them into the story. I also talk about the evils of using the function wizard.
People love stories, and it holds their attention better than most other formats. People also remember stories better, so be sure to include a little "helper" card to tape to their monitors, and they'll have some good reminders to help them remember things.
Thank you, that's a good suggestion.
What are the pitfalls of using the function wizard? I don't use it myself but have in the past shown it to students
With Vlookup I find people actually have a harder time understanding the function, and they found it easier to understand when they had to type it in. Also, when you go to teach them more advanced things like index match, or any other nested functions then it's easier if they are already familiar with just entering the function in instead of relying on the wizard.
I personally remember having a harder time learning functions when I tried to use the wizard myself too.
What level of Excel are you teaching? Enthusiasm from the teacher can't be underrated. Tell them how amazing Excel is. Find some examples of cool things it does on the internet and show them to the students. Even if it's beyond class scope, it shows what they someday could do with Excel (I was blown away by someone's version of Monopoly in Excel).
If it's within Class Scope, then you can dissect how it works and demonstrate Functions that way.
Look at the subfolder "Games And Novelties" in this forums Folder "Water Cooler" for some pretty cool stuff.
Last edited by ChemistB; 08-21-2015 at 11:13 AM.
ChemistB
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Hi jlt199,
Fantasy football and other games make the player pick their teams using constraints. The first is the money you have to spend to buy players. Then there is a value attached to players based on previous years or projected performance. The question is how to pick the "best" team given the money you have to spend. I do these problems as I do lots of problems. Make a guess and pick a single team. Add the dollars to see if it is too high. If the players are "in budget" then add their combined value and see what it is. Do it again and see if a second random pick of players is a better choice. If it is, save the new team and their cost and value. Then do it a few hundred times to get a good fantasy team. See the attached where I've done this.
The idea here is that Excel can be used to guess and check instead of needing a formula to solve a problem. This might be topic or method you'd teach to show how Excel can be used for solving those Fantasy Game for players in the class.
Last edited by MarvinP; 08-21-2015 at 11:14 AM.
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Thank you for your input.
Most of my students won't have used Excel before and I need to get them to the level where they can use nested functions (index(match) or if(and)), use vlookups and perform linear regression. I would also like to introduce them to Pivot tables if i have time
ChemistB, please can you explain where I can find the games and novelties folder?
Thanks
At the top of this page click on Forum to get to the list of all folders. Scroll down to the "Off Topic" folders where you will find "Water Cooler" Under Water Cooler is SubForum Games and Novelties
Change your Thread display options to Display Threads "From the Beginning"
Thank you, I shall definitely look at that
The very first thing you should teach new users is to limit formatting to as little as possible.
Excel is not an electronic coloring book for adults!
Also, NEVER EVER use merged cells!
You can get the same effect by doing: Select the cells>Right click>Format cells>Alignment tab>In the Horizontal drop down select: Center Across Selection>OK out
Biff
Microsoft MVP Excel
Keep It Simple Stupid
Let's Go Pens. We Want The Cup.
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