Hi everyone, sorry for top-posting. I think this sentence "Learners will be expected to be familiar with control flow, basic Python objects (variable assignment, lists, dictionaries) and file input and output." may be your problem. Beginners will not know what they don't know, and it may not be clear that "control flow" means "if, for and while", and so on.
Some people look at things like this and their reaction is "oh, a word I don't know, but I'm a smart person and I could probably figure it out" and some people think "oh, a word I don't know. This clearly isn't for me". The second group of people may include learners who do know if/while/for but don't know the jargon, and it is a shame to miss those people. I would suggest that you include in your call for participation a small piece of code and say something like "if you have written something like this before, this course is for you". Of course, I am speaking from relatively little experience here... Cheers, Sarah On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 2:46 PM, April Wright <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all- > > I had a question about targeting appropriate enrolment for a course. I > recently taught an intermediate Python workshop (intermediate as defined by > the basics course preceding it) at my home institution. It filled within > hours, which was encouraging. > > But, day of, about 1/5 of the students were utterly unable to keep up. Two > had never opened a terminal. I had to forcefully tell one student to leave > because I couldn't spare the time to explain how lists work in Python and > why whitespace is important and he got really belligerent about it. > > The students who stayed got a lot out of it, and I got some good feedback > for what they'd like to see in another Python workshop through the same > program. > > Below is the announcement for the course. > > ------------------- > Intermediate Python This domain non-specific course is designed for > Python programmers who have a little more experience with the language. > Learners will be expected to be familiar with control flow, basic Python > objects (variable assignment, lists, dictionaries) and file input and > output. This course will cover the knowledge to make code modular, readable > and reproducible. We will cover functions, error handling and classes. > > An e-mail with install instructions will be sent to you the week before > class begins. If you have questions about your qualifications for the > course, please contact the instructor. > ----------------------- > > What I'm wondering is if I could have worded it better to target the right > students students? I floated the idea of locking enrolment to people who > have taken the basic Python or the permission of the instructor, but that > requires me to put a lot of faith in an already-strained bureaucracy. > Suggestions? > > Thanks! > > --a > --------- > Graduate Student > Section of Integrative Biology > University of Texas at Austin > 1 University Station, C1100 > Austin, TX 78712-0254 > Phone: 512.940.5761 > http://wrightaprilm.github.io/ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org > -- Sarah Mount, Senior Lecturer, University of Wolverhampton website: http://www.snim2.org/ twitter: @snim2
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