Recently I presented a lightning talk on the topic of lightning talks.
Yeah, I know, I'm not very creative with my topic ideas.
Thursday 19 July 2018
Wednesday 4 July 2018
Intermediate level Python workshop - review
It didn't go as terribly as I'd expected. I got lucky with my improvisation and pulled off some off fairly successful exercises. However, there were mistakes - so many mistakes. You can't help but admire the people at the top because of their incredible preparation.
Simply trying not to destroy your own workshop with a critical mistake requires hours upon hours of preparation. Devising a workshop where there are relatively few observable flaws is on a completely new level.
Unlike Starcraft, teaching doesn't have replays. The best you can do is write reflection blog posts after the fact about things that you remember. But the valuable lessons cannot be found in the things you remember. The valuable lessons can only be found in the things you didn't notice, or the oversights you made, or the things you forgot.
This is why I think it's really important to take a video of yourself when you're presenting so you can identify and revise flaws in your own teaching. I think the reason I can motivate myself to do this is because I've learned of the value of replays and how important it is to revise the things that you yourself failed to notice.
Watching replays of yourself exposes all your flaws. It's damned painful sometimes. But you've gotta do it. You've got to keep moving forward.
Simply trying not to destroy your own workshop with a critical mistake requires hours upon hours of preparation. Devising a workshop where there are relatively few observable flaws is on a completely new level.
Unlike Starcraft, teaching doesn't have replays. The best you can do is write reflection blog posts after the fact about things that you remember. But the valuable lessons cannot be found in the things you remember. The valuable lessons can only be found in the things you didn't notice, or the oversights you made, or the things you forgot.
This is why I think it's really important to take a video of yourself when you're presenting so you can identify and revise flaws in your own teaching. I think the reason I can motivate myself to do this is because I've learned of the value of replays and how important it is to revise the things that you yourself failed to notice.
Watching replays of yourself exposes all your flaws. It's damned painful sometimes. But you've gotta do it. You've got to keep moving forward.
Classroom visit
Recently I visited my friend's hs classroom (thanks alice!).
My time and motivation is so limited recently. I'll try to cut this down to just the most important things. I have way too many posts left in Draft state.
Without people, there is no motivation. I'm just blogging to an empty audience.
My time and motivation is so limited recently. I'll try to cut this down to just the most important things. I have way too many posts left in Draft state.
Without people, there is no motivation. I'm just blogging to an empty audience.
Wednesday 13 April 2016
Productivity development practises talk
I seem to have a habit of picking up new projects without properly finishing reviews of old ones. It feels kind of wrong but it's the only way I can collect enough motivation.
The upcoming audience is unlike any one that I would have encountered before. This time, I'm presenting to people even more experienced than I am on my particular topic, so the major challenge in this case is developing content which is interesting/engaging enough for them to pay attention. Developing content which is out of the scope of their knowledge.
I have 10-15 minutes. Can I really teach people years more experienced and twice as skilled as I am? I don't really know. But it's worth a try, right?
The upcoming audience is unlike any one that I would have encountered before. This time, I'm presenting to people even more experienced than I am on my particular topic, so the major challenge in this case is developing content which is interesting/engaging enough for them to pay attention. Developing content which is out of the scope of their knowledge.
I have 10-15 minutes. Can I really teach people years more experienced and twice as skilled as I am? I don't really know. But it's worth a try, right?
Sunday 10 April 2016
Students: catching up
Catching up with incomplete work is important to the overall progress of every class. Using a metric of "average performance of the class", or "average learning of the class", the students who are behind are probably the most important ones, as they will perform the least well across the course.
It's a supremely important concept for the teacher to consider, because students who are behind receive a lot of negative reinforcement from classes. They notice that they don't understand concepts that their fellow students find easy, their classmates are discussing material from class they've never heard of, and it makes them feel excluded and hopeless.
It's a supremely important concept for the teacher to consider, because students who are behind receive a lot of negative reinforcement from classes. They notice that they don't understand concepts that their fellow students find easy, their classmates are discussing material from class they've never heard of, and it makes them feel excluded and hopeless.
Farewell university TAing
Oh yeah, an update on where I'm at now.
I moved across the world from Sydney to San Francisco and now I'm working here as a software engineer. But I still haven't given up on being the best teacher in the world, and I want to see what I can achieve with my spare time.
I think I'll pick up a few teaching projects.
- private tutoring
- solo compass v2 in collaboration with high schools
- youtube channel
- educational webapp ideas (I know, it's clichéd. But my webapp will be magical.
- educational mini-lectures at my new company
I still haven't given up. I owe myself that much.
I moved across the world from Sydney to San Francisco and now I'm working here as a software engineer. But I still haven't given up on being the best teacher in the world, and I want to see what I can achieve with my spare time.
I think I'll pick up a few teaching projects.
- private tutoring
- solo compass v2 in collaboration with high schools
- youtube channel
- educational webapp ideas (I know, it's clichéd. But my webapp will be magical.
- educational mini-lectures at my new company
I still haven't given up. I owe myself that much.
Private tutoring practice - coding interviews!
- I think private tutoring is about picking the correct exercises and stringing them together efficiently into lessons. Coming up with the right exercises is really hard, though. It requires a crap ton of 'creativity' (aka. failing and trying again) to come up with an exercise that feels correct. It takes even more to come up with an exercise that feels 'magical'.
I can't really explain the feeling of magic that comes with creating a really good exercise. Some exercise ideas just have this weird exciting feeling to them. Sometimes you can practically taste the excitement of the students, that's how good the exercise is.
I can't really explain the feeling of magic that comes with creating a really good exercise. Some exercise ideas just have this weird exciting feeling to them. Sometimes you can practically taste the excitement of the students, that's how good the exercise is.
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