Hello All,
I received a grant from my university to organize a 7-month program for
academic staff to build their Javascript skills. The idea is all the staff
who participate will get together 1-2x per month to share their progress on
individual projects they're developing, and get feedback and
troubleshooting help from both a peer group AND a paid expert I'm calling a
"coach." (Full description below.)
The problem I'm having is finding anyone who is interested in taking the
coaching the job. I have not made a public job ad, but I have emailed about
10 folks from campus and community, and asked them to notify their networks
and affiliated lis-servs. For example: the leaders of Milwaukee MeetUp
groups for tech women, for Javascript programmers, and open data; the web
development professor at our iSchool; our campus app development lab; the
leader of a local nonprofit that teaches coding to kids; etc. I've gotten
positive responses form many of these folks, but I haven't received a
nibble of interest from a single person in the job itself. I'm continuing
to identify key people whose networks I can tap, but I'm discouraged by the
apparent lack of interest I've encountered so far, and scratching my head
over what I'm doing wrong.
So I'm turning to you for advice -- specifically, two questions:
1) Do you know someone who might know someone in the Milwaukee area who
might be interested in a gig like this? If so, please feel free to
circulate this posting
2) Can you spot anything in the ad itself that I could improve? Anything
that's a turn-off? Should I include the pay rate in the ad?
(We have a total of about $1100; I figured I would negotiate the hourly
rate and total number of hours with the person we found. Although I listed
6 hours/month, that's only the ideal; we could bring down the total number
of hours, and pay a higher rate.)
Any other suggestions or ideas? I'd love to get your feedback.
Thank you!!
Eliza
Javascript Workshop Leader / "Coach"
6 hours per month, July - December, 2015
This summer, the Digital Humanities Lab at UWM will begin a professional
development series for academic staff from across campus to improve their
skills in coding for front-end Web development -- specifically, Javascript.
Workshop participants will be professionals from diverse academic
backgrounds who each have a real-life work-related project under
development. They will have completed some basic training in Javascript
(such as the JavaScript course in Codecademy), but are novice-level
developers. In twice-monthly meetings with peers and an expert coach, up
to 12 participants will meet for collaborative workshop sessions in which
they present progress on their projects, get help on overcoming obstacles,
receive short lessons on important topics, and gradually “level up” to
become more proficient programming problem solvers. Our goal is to support
staff who have already learned some basics of coding, but need help to
start becoming fluent enough to apply those basics in order to design and
build their desired products.
We seek an expert front-end programmer with Javascript expertise who will
act as coach, mentor, and troubleshooter for this group of learners.
Overall, the goal of the workshop sessions will be to build a community of
learners to support one another and provide motivation, camaraderie, and
practical assistance in overcoming roadblocks. The paid expert will act a
coach for the group, providing guidance in matters that are opaque to
novice learners, and sharing strategies from his/her experience. Sessions
may include short lessons prepared and presented by the coach, but we
envision workshop sessions in which the focus of the majority of the
meeting time is on individual participants' projects and questions.
Participants could also take turns researching and presenting on relevant
topics, with guidance from the coach. The exact format of the sessions
will be designed in part with guidance from the coach, and will be subject
to revision and changes with input from the group as the project progresses.
The person we hire will:
Be an expert developer of front-end interaction applications. Skilled in
JavaScript, and in adopting specialized JS libraries.
Have some experience (formal or informal) teaching, coaching, or mentoring
beginner-level programmers.
Have Interest in and competency with a wide range of subject and content
applications.
Have comfort with and interest in joining a learning environment that is
flexible, collaborative, and open.
To express interest in the position, or to learn more, please contact
Eliza Bettinger, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
--
Eliza Bettinger
Digital Geo-Information Specialist
American Geographical Society Library
UW-Milwaukee
Milwaukee WI USA
414-229-6282
