Interesting stuff Bill. I guess the easy way to test your hypothesis is to seed the advert with something that you can reference afterwards. "Please bring a photo of your local neighbourhood cat for our ice breaker session", "please bring an apple for the instructor", "please come carrying a placard which expresses your personal ennui".
You could ask them to bring the last code they wrote, but it would be a shame to miss an opportunity for some mischief ;) Sarah On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Bill Mills <[email protected]> wrote: > +1 Sarah, the code sample is an interesting idea, we should totally try > it! But, I'd love to see some experimentation done to test my sneaking > suspicion that struggling students don't read the advertisement text at > all. I'm comfortable assuming that that's part of the effect - but how big > a part? > > I understand some people are currently working on overhauling workshop > pretesting. How is that effort going? I think that particular project was > testing to split large classes up into beginner and intermediate rooms > (which is a whole other strategy if you have the staff for it), but there's > probably something to be learned there for pre-workshop exams, too; making > an anonymous pretest webpage with immediate feedback is doable, happy to > help there if anyone is interested. > > End of the day though, you're always going to have the low tail in the > skill distribution, which is why to solve this problem in situ I'm such a > big fan of pair programming and peer instruction, so those weaker students > get the tutoring and attention they need. > > > > On 2014-10-30 9:22 AM, Sarah Mount wrote: > > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing > [email protected]http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org > > > -- > Bill Mills > Community Manager, Mozilla Science Lab > @billdoesphysics > > -- Sarah Mount, Senior Lecturer, University of Wolverhampton website: http://www.snim2.org/ twitter: @snim2
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
