Laurent Gatt wrote "When we started the 'Advanced R development' course, some participant thought that it was a follow-up of the 'Beginners R course' and joined despite the description stating requirement that were clearly (for use, at least) not met after two days of introductory programming course"
SWC might want to consider fee charges on "advanced" courses. My understanding is one of SWC's missions is to promote *basic* software skills. For "advanced" skills, learners either have to pay or figure out by themselves. That's fair and a common practice in the real world. Most MOOC courses are on introductory levels. Many free software packages or services have *pricing* schemes. On transition from SWC to SCF, it might be a good timing to tune business model. -kai On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 9:34 AM, Laurent Gatto <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear April, > > > Message: 1 > > Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 09:46:52 -0500 > > From: April Wright <[email protected]> > > To: Software Carpentry Discussion > > <[email protected]> > > Subject: [Discuss] Targeting intermediate learners > > Message-ID: > > < > caemqffxhpqhuff7+ff0hwjnocgbkxtx3zscx7etka_rbc1y...@mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > 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? > > We had issues along these lines with some of our courses. When we > started the 'Advanced R development' course [*], some participant > thought that it was a follow-up of the 'Beginners R course' and joined > despite the description stating requirement that were clearly (for use, > at least) not met after two days of introductory programming > course. As a result, we specified in the requirement that attending the > beginners course was not enough. Also, I think that asking specific > programming questions and requesting delegates to explicitly state what > kind of prior experience they have is very helpful. It might costs a bit > of time before the course but, eventually, save a lot of time and > frustration during the event. > > Best wishes, > > Laurent > > [*] In hindsight, it was not a good idea to call that it advanced course > (too vague), and we renamed it to avoid such confusion. The notion of > being advanced/intermediate is not quite arbitrary, especially for > people that are not that advanced. > > > 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/ > > -------------- next part -------------- > > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > > URL: < > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/pipermail/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org/attachments/20141030/4ceff255/attachment-0001.html > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >
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