I was going to followup to the original article that I posted on October
22 but I no longer have it locally.
In that article I asked for advice on teaching an entry-level ham
radio class, and the resulting thread was a big help. I appreciate the
comments. Here's a short status on how things went.

The class consisted of six sessions held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so
it lasted three weeks. The last session was the Thursday before
Thanksgiving, so we took that week off, then the students asked for a
review session the Tuesday after Thanksgiving before the exam, which was
Thursday, November 29.

Five new hams came out of the exam session, plus one upgrade from the
local ham population (General to Extra). Seven people took the test, so
two didn't make it. Of the two, one of them missed by only one question
so he decided to try it again that night; the second attempt didn't work
for him either.

Here's the real shocker for me: The VE team mailed the package back to
the ARRL on Friday (11/30). The calls were in the FCC database
yesterday (12/3). The ARRL couldn't have received the forms before
yesterday, so that means that on the same day that the paperwork reached
the ARRL the calls were issued. I went to the FCC website yesterday
just to be sure that I remembered how to do a search by name and was
astounded when the entries for these new hams showed up. That's impressive.

Other comments: I liked the format of six 2-hour sessions. The
students also expressed their approval, but that's not too useful since
they tend to be self-selected; only people who can fit six sessions into
their schedule were there. I found that I could cover two of the
sub-elements from the pool in a bit over two hours and had time to
present general background information and also go over the specific
pool questions.

I was reasonably satisfied with how the presentation broke out in terms
of covering concepts and reviewing specific pool questions. We had time
to do both, and I felt that both were valuable to the students.

All in all, I found it to be a rewarding experience for me, and the look
on the face of one of the students when she was informed that she had
passed the test was, as they say on the TV commercials, priceless. Now
the next step is to get these new hams on the air.

73, Steve KB9X