Git Intermediate Teacher
My other big success recently was teaching an intermediate level git tutorial for PyLadies.
I've been attending Vancouver's PyLadies pretty much since it started, because I like Python & other lady programmers. When the original co-organizer stepped down after a year, I (and several other ladies) became Co- and Assistant Organizers. During a planning meeting someone asked for a git tutorial and I said I'd run it, thinking it was weeks out and I'd have lots of time to prepare.
Of course, I then a) decided not to use an existing git tutorial (because I hadn't looked very hard or found one I liked) and b) procrastinated making my own until the weekend before I was supposed to present. Fortunately I had recruited Z to help with merge & Windows based questions, and he helped me put together the presentation & repo and agonize over wording.
The tutorial itself went pretty well. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I think everyone learned something, even if it wasn't what I was trying to teach necessarily, or everything I was trying to teach. I certainly learned lots about teaching and how every lesson plan goes wrong on first contact with learners.
Specific things I'd change:
- Explaining that switching branches changes files on disk
- Diagrams! More than one!
- Details on what to expect from playing around with a visualizer
- Figure out how to deal with learners of different levels - I think I spent too much time on the lagging people and left the learners that didn't have trouble bored
- Ask better questions at the beginning on what everyone's status is
More interestingly to me has been all the stuff on how to teach I read to prepare. There's a ton of pedagogy (and CS pedagogy specifically) that's all new to me and completely fascinating. In particular, Software Carpentry has been trying to teach basic CS to scientists for over a decade, and has a lot of great resources not only on teaching specific tech things, but also on how to train their teachers.
Even the things that aren't surprising to someone with an education background are fascinating to me. The structure of multiple choice questions - that the non-correct answers are (should be) probing for incorrect mental models, rather that noise, is something that I'd never really thought about before.
I'm thinking about contacting a former professor of mine that I particularly enjoyed, Greg Baker, and asking him about his teaching philosophies and experiences. I also did an undergrad project with Greg Wilson, the founder of Software Carpentry, and I might be able to reopen that connection and ask about computing science pedagogy.
Definitely have lots of new things on my to-read list!
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