As I have a background in teaching adults and actually work as an ESL instructor at a local community college here in the Portland area, I am often asked by my superiors here at Intel to give training and mentoring to new hires. I helped a new hire today in fact. She had been learning the ropes when I had to show her how to verify whether bugs in the software were fixed or not. We use a specialized software program called PVCS Tracker to do so. Tracker allows debuggers to first enter in information about bugs that they find. This information catalogues all kinds of data, such as OS version, language, software component, severity of bug ect. Providing this information helps the software engineers locate and eliminate the bug. The software program then allows the debuggers to check if the bug is removed. My job today was to show the new hire, Fiona, how to check to see if bugs were removed. After giving her a little bit of theory and information about Tracker and how it can be used to verify that bugs have been eliminated, I demonstrated the process to her. Then I had her check for bug removal, too, by giving her verbal guidance and prompts to ensure she was able to complete the task from beginning to end. Too often, people demonstrate and then expect the process to be transparent. However, I have learned as a teacher that students need the hands-on experience also to solidify learning and understanding. In doing, people are able to experience the heuristic directly and can prompty comment and ask relevant questions as they come up, giving someone such as a mentor or instructor direct evidence that learning has or hasn't quite yet taken place. It serves as an informal means of assessment as well.