From Your Instructor: How Can We Make Training Better?

[Louis_Frolio]

Hello Databricks Community! 👋

As a Databricks instructor, I'm looking to gather feedback on your training experiences to help improve our programs. Whether you've taken official Databricks courses, bootcamps, or certification prep - I'd love to hear from you!

What worked well? What could have been better? Are there any specific suggestions for improvement? All constructive feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Also, if I've had the pleasure of being your instructor, please feel free to share your thoughts - both positive and areas where I can grow.

Thanks for helping make Databricks education even better! 🚀

Cheers, Louis.

#Databricks #Training #Feedback #Community

[Khaja_Zaffer]

Can you please add iceberg related videos. May be a good and detail video should help. Please 

[Louis_Frolio]

Thanks for reaching out about Iceberg training videos! That's a great suggestion - detailed Iceberg content would definitely be valuable.

Right now we're still working on expanding our video library in that direction. Iceberg is definitely on our radar since so many people have been asking about it lately.

For now, the Databricks documentation on Iceberg is pretty solid and covers a lot of the implementation details. Our Delta Lake videos might also be helpful since the concepts around table formats overlap.

I'll definitely pass your request along to the team. We're always looking at what topics people want to see covered next.

For now, here are some helpful links to documentation on Iceberg:

Unity Catalog managed tables for Delta Lake and Iceberg

What is Apache Iceberg in Databricks?

Read Delta tables with Iceberg clients

Announcing full Apache Iceberg™ support in Databricks

Get Data Into Databricks - Databricks Uniform Iceberg Integration (YouTube)

Thanks again for the feedback!

Cheers, Louis.

[BS_THE_ANALYST]

Hi @Louis_Frolio . 

I've been fortunate enough to be on the partner blended-learning program where you can access live lectures. I really enjoyed the content, and it's clear the instructors know their stuff ☺️.

From my experience, as a learner, I'd say the following:

1. The live sessions, at least in partner-blended learning, I found to be pretty compact. If an instructor wanted to diverge to explain things, it could mean you'd need to sacrifice time for other parts of the learning, i.e. had to skim over them to fit the content in.

2. Most of the learning was facilitated with an instructor running pre-populated notebooks. I think there's something great about creating stuff from scratch and seeing the mistakes unfold. I'd love to see more sessions with the empty notebooks and going through the motions and seeing the fails and ways to solve. Also, we'd see how much AI is used in general practice ☺️.

3. Databricks moves fast which is amazing. We can also see lots of the exams/certifications moving fast aswell and new content being added to the exams (which is awesome). I found that the lack of "practice papers", made by Databricks, to be a bit of a barrier as I couldn't really assess where I was currently at in terms of a test score.

4. I'd really like if the Databricks Certifications had a more prominent link to the Databricks Community.I appreciate the Academy is there but this misses out on getting lots of certified (and to be ceritfied) members into the community. One way to do this is through a Challenge series. These challenges will use concepts rather than mediums i.e. orchestrate X (not use DLT for X). This way, these challenges could always be linked to a certification (on the prep guide or website itself) and they would always be relevant for learning that particular module. Naturally, after answering a question, you want to know if your answer it correct, so every challenge would need an answer (and a solution should people be stuck). 

5. Opportunities for collaborative learning where possible.

@Louis_Frolio hopefully this gets the conversation moving on this topic ☺️. 

All the best,
BS

[Louis_Frolio]

Great feedback @BS_THE_ANALYST. I would like to offer my thoughts on each of your points:

1. Blended learning is fairly new to us as instructors. Our only interaction with the Uplimit Blended Learning format is one hour per week during class sessions. This time is intended for students to ask questions about materials they study independently, with instructors serving as subject matter experts. However, I find that participants often hesitate to ask questions, which requires us to deliver content during that one-hour window. I try to cover key concepts as comprehensively as possible within this limited timeframe.

2. Our classes contain extensive content (slides, demonstrations, and labs), making pre-populated notebooks essential. I inform the class that "I will demonstrate this for you, and you can follow along and then work on the materials independently after class." For our four-hour ITL sessions, the lab environment remains accessible for four days, allowing students to practice. In my opinion, this is where meaningful learning occurs.

3. This has been an ongoing concern. I am currently serving on three teams developing new examinations (details confidential), and I can confirm that the certification team is producing higher-quality preparation materials than previously available. This is an evolving process, so continued improvements are expected.

4. I appreciate your suggestions. Could you provide more detailed information? I am also participating in a workstream focused on Community improvements. We are exploring various enhancements, though nothing similar to your proposal has emerged yet. Additional elaboration would be valuable. Please feel free to send me a private message if preferred.

5. Regarding collaborative learning, what specific approaches are you considering? All ideas are welcome. As mentioned in point 4, I am actively involved in a workstream to enhance Community features, which may include certification and training-related improvements.

I look forward to your feedback.

Cheers,
Louis