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Things I learned about teaching programming from attending an online cooking class. I’m going to try this whole 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🧵" title="Thread" aria-label="Emoji: Thread">thing. (1/17)
Yesterday, I attended a cooking class via video call. While I mostly enjoyed it and the food we made was tasty, it also left me stressed, really exhausted, and a bit discouraged. So what happened? (2/17)
I read the instructions in advance, which asked us to wash and measure out ingredients, but not prepare them otherwise. There were a lot of ingredients, so I couldn’t measure everything out precisely (I have neither enough bowls nor enough space in my kitchen). (3/17)
When I joined the call, I soon realized that I hadn& #39;t received a last-minute e-mail from the school, and I missed out on two crucial prep instructions, so I was already stressed and catching up before we’d even started. (4/17)
During the class, the instructor often demonstrated multiple instructions at once, at their speed. Because I couldn’t measure everything out in advance, I often had to flick between video call and the recipe PDF, and couldn& #39;t concentrate on the video instructions. (5/17)
My stove is also ancient and slow, so cooking things took longer for me than the instructor. I felt like I missed many of the instructions a lot of times, and wasn’t sure how to make sure I followed all of them, because they mostly weren’t repeated. (6/17)
The instructor did regularly check whether everyone was on the same page, but I mostly felt like the expectation was I should be ready + I felt bad potentially slowing others down (though I don’t know how well they kept up, I couldn’t see them most of the time). (7/17)
All in all, I didn’t get as much as I hoped out of the class: because I was constantly trying to keep up, I didn’t have a chance to form potential questions in my head. Only after the class was over did I start thinking about what I learned and what I didn& #39;t understand (8/17)
The recipe wasn’t that difficult, and I’m not an inexperienced cook. But I felt like I was constantly scrambling, and I found that deeply frustrating. I needed clearer upfront prep instructions, or a slower pace. (9/17)
What does all this have to do with programming? Actually quite a lot, because teaching programming is not that different: you demonstrate concepts + instructions through live-coding to novice learners, who will at first find everything super confusing, because it is. (10/17)
At the same time I, as an instructor, often don& #39;t really remember that constant feeling of being overwhelmed all that well, because so many things have become routine or obvious to me. (11/17)
Yesterday’s cooking class was a reminder of what learners experience: software installation instructions that seem clear to me might not be clear to them. They might have a different OS, or might not have been able to install all the necessary software in advance. (12/17)
Learners need to be shown concepts and instructions one at a time. They need time to think through those instructions. They need those instructions + concepts to be repeated. They need time to try things out for themselves, potentially fail, and try again. (13/17)
Learners need breathing room to figure out what they don’t understand, and formulate questions. I learned a lot of that from he @thecarpentries instructor training. Being in the role of the learner yesterday was a powerful demonstration of the value of that training. (14/17)
When I don’t ensure all my learners are set up + ready to go at the start, when I give them too many instructions at once without also allowing them to think through them and experiment, when things are not repeated, I risk leaving learners discouraged and frustrated. (15/17)
I risk leaving them with the feeling that programming is just not for them, or that they’re just not smart enough for it to make sense. But that& #39;s not true, and that& #39;s the last thing I want them to feel and think. (16/17)
As a cooking class, yesterday wasn’t that great of an experience, and I think I’ll stick to recipe books and video tutorials in the future.
But as a reminder that anything is difficult the first time, and that learners deserve empathy + patience, it was invaluable. /end
But as a reminder that anything is difficult the first time, and that learners deserve empathy + patience, it was invaluable. /end
