On the 15th of February DS43 taught clients and members of the public either introduction to Tableau or Introduction to Power Bi. The topic I chose to teach interactivity in Tableau Desktop. The lesson itself needed to be an hour and a half long covering filters, clicking on a chosen object to go on a URL or different sheet, highlight, set actions and parameter actions.
The task itself felt daunting at first and an hour and a half felt like a long time to teach a topic. I started off by writing a blog on Interactivity which is linked below:
https://www.thedataschool.co.uk/saampave-sanmuhanathan/interactivity-on-tableau/
We had a whole day to plan our lesson. After writing a blog, I went through the lesson we were taught on set and parameter actions to familiarise myself with the topic. I created a PowerPoint presentation with basic explanations of the content. One thing I wanted to be cautious about was to make sure that the lesson was engaging and not just me talking to the clients. I found it easier to create the solution workbook first and work backwards to create the exercises. My first draft of my workbook did not have any premade charts and only instructions of the task the client had to complete.
The following day, I paired up with a fellow DSer who had planned the lesson for introduction to sets and parameters. The main thing I had realized when I went through the lesson was that I had put too much content into the lesson. Teaching my colleague who was already familiar with the content means the lesson will go much smoother than teaching 30 people who are new to the software. After presenting my plan to the coaches it became clear to me that I need to shorten my lesson even further. In addition, I decided it will be easier to have basic charts and dashboards prebuilt in the practice workbook I want to share with the clients.
I made these changes during my personal development time and made sure I continued to refresh my knowledge of the topic leading up to the actual day. The clients who came to the session had a varied experience with Tableau however those who weren’t teaching would walk around and help those who are struggling. My session was the last one of the day and I found that the difficulty level was too large a jump for those who were previously unfamiliar with Tableau. This meant I had to repeat demonstrations multiple times and spent a lot of my time on the floor. I made sure to share the blog post I had written so that those who did not understand could reread the content in their own time. In future I will make sure I have planned clear use cases for the techniques I am teaching as this was something that was questioned throughout the lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed the session and have gained a deeper understanding into Interactivity on Tableau Desktop, a topic I previously struggled with.