Steve Bonine wrote:
[...]
The basic issue I'm wrestling with is walking the tightrope between
teaching the actual questions from the pool and teaching concepts. It's
not fair to the students to ignore the existence of the pool; after all,
one of the goals of the class is to prepare them to take the written
exam. But another goal is to get them ready to actually be an active
member of the ham radio community, and memorizing pool questions doesn't
contribute to that objective. So I'll try to do both -- cover concepts
and review the actual questions.
[...]


A standard technique in college-level courses is to assign some
readings that will not be discussed in class. Then, you give a test that
covers the outside readings as well as the lecture content. You could
use the question pool as outside reading material and then lecture about
actual practice. Difficult questions from the pool could be covered at
the end of class as an "extra help" session.


I wish we still had something like the Novice license. I'd like to be
able to get past the pressure of the written exam and get prospective
hams some real experience so they understand what I'm babbling about in
class. For example, you can lecture about repeaters, but if the
students have actually *used* a repeater, they have a whole different
understanding of what you're saying.


Keep in mind that the Element 2 written test used to be the written
part of the Novice test. Arguably, it is easier to get a no-code
Technician license than it was to get a Novice license. Please
understand: I am not complaining. I think that is a good situation,
especially if the intent is to draw newcomers into real-world
communications, like disaster relief and not the self-limited exchange
of beeps that the old Novice class was offered.

--
Klystron