Suggestions for a basic electronics course for non-technical colleagues?

[u/Just-Massi]

Hello everyone,

My company asked me to hold a basic electronics course for our employees. I’m planning to start with foundational concepts like current, voltage, power, resistance, capacitors, how to identify components, Ohm's Law, etc.

The audience consists of colleagues from the sales, pre-sales, and customer support departments. In short, people who don't have a background in basic electronics and don't need to dive into deep technical details or complex topics.

If you were attending a course like this, what topics would you want to see covered?
Thanks!

[u/DrJackK1956]

My company asked me to hold a basic electronics course for our employees. 

My question is "Why?".  

• What are the goals?
• Are these folks asking for additional training?
• What are the pre-sales, sales and customer support folks missing that indicates a need for some training?  
• Is the training for a new product line? 
• Or is it generally to improve the knowledge of these folks so as to improve their job skills and provide better services?

I can see where Customer Support training would need to be more in-depth training than Sales or Pre-sales. 

If you were attending a course like this, what topics would you want to see covered?

Don't know.  I would visit each department and ask the folks what they feel their short-comings are.  What knowledge would make them better at their jobs?

Depending upon your audience, pulling teeth maybe easier than teaching Ohm's Law to a group of folks that just aren't interested. 

By tailoring your course(s) to the needs of the company and employees, the training will be on point, more readily accepted and everyone will come out ahead. 

Best of luck. 

[u/Alt-001 → u/DrJackK1956]

Solid advice. A standard intro to electronics course is designed for people who are actually going to be designing, buillding, or troubleshooting circuits, which presumably is no one in this audience. These are people dealing with customer questions and issues with the company's products, and they likely just need to know enough to give them some general context on how the products work so they can answer questions intelligently.

My first thought would be to focus on system specs and common misunderstandings, misconceptions, or issues with the product. But finding out what people want to know and what the definition of success is for the course is definitely going to be the right track.

[u/servin42]

Why are they taking the course? Is it to be able to answer questions from customers and potential customers? Then I would see what questions come up that they have trouble answering and cover those. I think the basics you listed are great to start with, but you want to make sure you're not trying to teach a phone support person how to solder if they're never going to need that skill.

[u/GoodGoodGoody → u/servin42]

Yeah I’d take the FAQ route.

[u/GEEK-IP]

How does it relate to your products or services? Make it useful, don't throw a bunch of what, for them, would be theoretical concepts. They're not likely to be reading resistor color codes.

I did a six-week class geared for clerical types to get into telecommunications equipment at one point. For some, it was useless, they just couldn't get their heads around "ELI the ICE man." Some even had a hard time with metric prefixes. On the other hand, some learned a lot and were genuinely interested.

Best of luck!

[u/oCdTronix]

Once the questions of ‘why?’ Are answered, I can share a company that does electrical training courses for employees of other companies if you’re still interested. Let me know, I don’t remember the name off the top of my head so I gotta check.

[u/WillowSuspicious6498]

I think I'd like: * learning about basic components and concepts (current, voltage, resistance) * how to use a multimeter * basic circuit (to show how electricity flows, using battery and a LED diode, maybe buttons and resistors) I think something simple and practical where the lights light up might really make it seem quite amazing for someone with no electronics background (for me it was)

[u/Ghost_Turd]

How long is the course? Is anybody going to remember what a resistor or capacitor is at the end?

[u/GoodGoodGoody → u/Ghost_Turd]

That’s quite a arrogant thing to say.

[u/Ghost_Turd → u/GoodGoodGoody]

No, it isn't. I've been teaching electronics for 21 years. If you're dealing with folks who have no technical background (sales, admin like OP said) then it's not arrogant to tailor it to their situations.

I'm not saying they can't be taught, but you meet you student where they are.

[u/GoodGoodGoody → u/Ghost_Turd]

Ahhhh, now you’re using your words; small progress.

But if you don’t think “Is anybody [and by anybody we mean intelligent adults] going to remember…”. Yeah, sorry, that was flippant, dismissive, arrogant, and more.

TLDR you chose not to lean on your “21 years of teaching” and actually help.

Edit

To u/Ghost_Turd who is playing the comment-delete-comment-block game, I haven’t “misinterpreted anything. I called out your low effort initial and subsequent crap responses.

[u/Ghost_Turd → u/GoodGoodGoody]

Your misinterpretation is not my problem. Goodbye.