What I've Learned from Learning – and Teaching

This article was written by Udemy instructor Phillip Burton.

Hello. I’m Phillip Burton, and I teach with Udemy. I am a Data Analyst, and I teach on a variety of Data Analytical topics, such as SQL Server, Tableau, the Power Platform and programming.

I started working with computers in the late 1970s, and my first computer was a Commodore IBM Pet, which had a grand total of 4 kilobytes of memory – that’s only 4,096 characters. So with that little amount of space, you obviously have to be able to use it efficiently.

I started to learn programming so I could get the computer to do what I wanted it to. For example, I hacked into a chess program and removed some of my opponent’s pieces! In those days we had just three TV channels, and in one of my earliest programs I typed in what was happening in those 3 channels for that day. My program then displayed the ‘now’ and ‘next’ for each channel. Every quarter of an hour I wanted a bell to chime, but because the computer couldn’t make any sounds, I asked the tape desk to play, which made a sound.

I’ve been learning throughout my life, and so learning new skills is not new to me. I learned programming in the 1980s, Excel in the mid-90s, Access in 1999 by reading the Help file, and SQL Server in 2011. When I was learning SQL Server, I wanted to find some material to help me. I read the Microsoft Exam books on the topics, and from there I found out that there were related Microsoft certifications. These certifications are important in several ways.

First of all, they show what Microsoft wants you to know. There is a huge series of topics that you should know for a particular subject, but without a guide, you don’t know what they are. A certification syllabus tells you that you have to do “X, Y, Z”, and some of these topics might be completely new – some were to me.

Secondly, once you learn all of this, what can you do with it? Yes, it’s great knowledge that you have got for yourself and that you can use in your work, but is that all? How can you let others know about your new-found knowledge? In 2015, I got a job as an Education Data analyst. Apart from my Udemy courses, I had no prior experience in Education. So how did I do this?

I took a lot of exams between 2012 and 2015. So it wasn’t just me saying “Yes, I can do SQL Server, I can do Microsoft Office” – that would just be my word against other people’s claims. However, having these certifications, I can say that Microsoft says I can do these things.

Later, I talked to my then-manager, and apparently having those certifications on my CV/resume got me the interview; without those, I would not have had an interview for that job. And because of my skills, which I was able to demonstrate during the interview, I managed to get the job.

So, that’s how certificates helped me, and that’s how they can help you. Even if you don’t go for the exams, you will have the knowledge that’s behind them.

So why did I want to create Udemy courses? Why did I want to #ITeachWithUdemy? Well, when I was learning SQL Server in 2011, I bought a video course (not on Udemy) for around $200. And the content was 10 modules, each of which were 20 minutes long – just over 3 hours in total. It wasn’t sufficient for me to learn everything that I needed to; it was just scraping the surface. It was a very broad-brush approach over a lot of topics, and then perhaps a deeper dive into one topic per module. What else was there? There was also residential training available, but that cost around $3,000 for the week.

So in 2015, when I was in between jobs, I thought “What is it that I would have liked to have had when I was learning SQL?” So I started to create my first SQL Server course with Udemy. It was a series of 3-4 hour courses, which are now merged together into a single 29 hour course. It takes you step-by-step into each of the requirements. And now people take my courses, not just in SQL, but in Power BI, Office, Tableau, the Power Platform, and they are learning the information they need for their exams. They are getting their own certifications, and adding them onto their own CVs and resumes.

I’ve got a recent review for my Power BI course which says “Phillip's courses are always very detailed, easy to follow and cover all the required materials for the certifications. Phillip has helped me pass multiple Microsoft certification exams!” Well, it’s great to get the thanks, but it’s you (the learner) who has put the effort in the learning. It’s you who has put in the time. It’s you who has gone for the exam.

It’s just like getting a gym membership. Just because you have that membership doesn’t mean that you are getting the exercise. It just means that you are down some money. You actually have to go into the gym and put in the work. It’s the same with my Udemy courses. I have put in the work once in creating these courses, but it is you that are putting in the work multiple times by going through these course, and it is you that get the reward.

How do I encourage students to continue learning? Well, I want to put myself in the student’s place. Yes, a course has lots of videos, but that’s only part of the learning journey. Another part is being able to say “Yes, I can understand and remember what you said.” So, I have multiple-choice quizzes in my courses where appropriate. The idea here isn’t to give you an exam in the middle of the course; it is to reinforce your learning, so that you can remember it.

Additionally, later videos build on this learning, by incorporating them with another topic, looking at it from a different angle. So maybe previously we were creating SELECT statements in SQL with the 6 principal clauses. Now we could be creating views, stored procedures and functions, all based on the SELECT statement. So each part of a course can build on previous knowledge.

And then there are practice activities, with a series of instructions and asking you to do them. That’s where we have “I see, I remember, I do” – you are finding out for yourself what problems there might be. You might say “Yes, Phillip said in your videos that X may be a problem, so I’ve got to do Y”. You are now applying your new-found skills.

Towards the end there may be a practice exam, or I may point you in the direction of organizations which offer official Practice exams. Again, this is part of the learning experience. If you get an answer wrong, you can and will learn with an explanation as to WHY it is wrong.

And then, by the end, you have gone through the course; you have learned what you wanted to learn; you have achieved your goals for this course. Maybe you want to go one step further and go for the official exam, and that’s brilliant if you do.

That is why I get up each morning and say “I am going to plan or create a video about a new topic.” It might be about the Power Platform, or Azure, or Microsoft Office. This is how I want to help you to achieve your goals. So that is why #ITeachWithUdemy.