I teach 6th grade at an elementary school and have a Rubik's Cube Club. In '08-'09 I taught 11 students. I briefly went over the notation (10-15 minutes) and had them write algorithms on a sheet of paper. The next year I made a booklet with pictures similar to the You Can Do The Cube printout and taught 76 students. This year the popularity has waned a little and I've only taught 19 students so far for a total of 106. The success rate increased dramatically with the booklet and pictures. I also have set the expectation that it takes 3 one hour classes and, with some students, it could take 4 or 5. It really depends on how many students there are in the class. A lot of people think there is just some little trick to it, so if you don't prepare them by saying that it does take some work to learn, they will give up easily. I also tell them that I expect to see them next week at the class and mess with them if they don't show up.
If there are 10-15 it is really hard to help people compared to 2-3. The hardest part to teach is definitely the cross. I spend a good 30-40 min on just the cross compared to the first layer corners which usually takes 5-10 minutes. The problem with most videos, even with other puzzles, is when someone says, "It's intuitive, so just figure it out", and then move on to the next topic.
I have a Rubik's wall where students get a You Can Do The Cube certificate and a picture where the whole school can see, but they have to memorize the alogirthms and solve it in front of me first. So most students don't forget how to solve it after all that unless they just don't cube for many months. We had a little cube competition at the end of the year in May with trophies and the best single was 25.04 seconds. Grades 4-6 are fairly easy to teach, while 3rd I find difficult and I've only had a couple of 2nd graders learn.
