Learning by Teaching: How I'm Preparing for a Data Science Workshop

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to teach something and in order for you to do so, you have to go learn it. I think may teachers in school go through it especially when they are assigned a course that they are not really strong about. At the moment, this is my present case. In a few days from now, I would have to take a 6 hours introductory course on data science and my mind have been bouncing around on what I would teach for the duration of 6 hours.

Yeah I do have skills relating to data science, which involves python programming, but I have not been really serious in developing these skills, which I would not say is totally my fault as I am distracted a lot with school especially with building my final year project.

I think most of my skills at the moment are focused on the machine learning aspect of data science, not the exploratory part. I have come to realise this so clearly after I volunteered to teach a data science course in my church.

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Why did I volunteer to do this?

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You might have this question in your mind: why did I volunteer to teach a subject that is not my strong field? Yeah I chose to do this because I wanted to grow and I saw the space as a medium of learning. Aside from learning personally, teaching is also another form of learning, as I get to understand things I know at a deeper level when I am forced to split them into smaller bits so that others can understand.

At the same time, I am doing this so that I can contribute to the community space and, most importantly, build a community around me as well. This would open me up to opportunities when it comes to job-related things, but the main reason for this is building my skills.

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What topics would I cover that day?

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I have seriously been thinking about this, as I want to start from the ground up, especially for people who are just be starting in the data science field for the first time. So I will be looking towards teaching data analysis with Excel and then moving forward towards learning MySQL, and then we will see how we can make use of tools like Looker Studio and PowerBi before we enter into introductory to Python for Data Science proper.

The training is meant to last 6 hours, so with proper time management, I should be able to make the course practical and provide them with the right tools to start learning data science.

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What advantage does this add to me?

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As listed earlier, I get to grow a community, I get to increase my knowledge, and at the same time, this would surely add to my resume. I don't know what would make up this in the future but I plan on doing all these without asking for a dime. It looks like my church plans on not making it totally free as they want to appreciate the tutors who would be teaching a skill on that day of training.

I would let you guys know how everything goes, especially with my learning.