<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bradallen137@gmail.com">bradallen137@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach<br>
Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't<br>
have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to<br>
prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can<br>
we avert disaster?<br>
<br>
Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an<br>
instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally<br>
effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and<br>
retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of<br>
intentions. So why not risk trying something different?<br>
<br>
I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for<br>
consideration. Here goes:<br>
<br>
Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's<br>
schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all<br>
attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners.<br>
The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors<br>
simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for<br>
chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make<br>
it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun.<br>
<br>
According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced<br>
Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if<br>
asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer<br>
specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer<br>
can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to<br>
step up to the challenge.<br>
<br>
One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for<br>
pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the<br>
student needs to know. Here's how it might go:<br>
<br>
0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core<br>
fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the<br>
wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum.<br>
1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper<br>
tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets<br>
for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white<br>
tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections,<br>
etc.).<br>
2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of<br>
each color for the part they needed to learn.<br>
3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in<br>
the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that<br>
specific curriculum item.<br>
4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough,<br>
the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy.<br>
5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the<br>
students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day<br>
can be found to resolve the remaining tickets.<br>
<br>
This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not<br>
sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use<br>
their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one.<br></blockquote></div><br>I think a lot will depend on what the ratio of beginners to experienced pythoneers is.<br><br>Did the survey tell us that?<br><br>
Kevin Horn<br>