Greg wrote a blog post about pretty much this at the end of February: http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2015/02/improving-instruction.html
On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 9:02 AM Greg Wilson <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree - how's this for a plan? > > 1. Maintainers for each lesson file an issue suggesting material that can > be moved into discussion.md (a storage depot for extra stuff). > > 2. We ask trainees to submit exercises (particularly MCQs) rather than new > content. > > Ivan/Gabriel, would you be willing to lead discussion of this at > tomorrow's lab meeting? > > Thanks, > Greg > > > On 2015-03-31 11:38 AM, Gabriel A. Devenyi wrote: > > I've had a recent similar concern regarding the shell lessons. > > I think the root cause of this may be the final assignment for > instructor training, it's probably easiest for people to just add material. > We may need to re-spin that assignment a bit so we don't encourage bloat. > > -- > Gabriel A. Devenyi B.Eng. Ph.D. > Research Computing Associate > Computational Brain Anatomy Laboratory > Cerebral Imaging Center > Douglas Mental Health University Institute > McGill University > t: 514.761.6131x4781 > e: [email protected] > > On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Ivan Gonzalez <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I'm going through the Python novice lesson for a workshop I'm teaching >> this week. It's been a few months since the last time I taught it and I've >> noticed that the lesson has increased substantially. I feel the same with >> the git novice lesson: in the last couple of months I'm the maintainer, >> we've added a good 15 minutes in a lesson that most instructors and >> learners have trouble finishing. Also, I think these additions are not >> reflected properly in the estimated times. >> >> For example, the first topic of the python lesson [1] has now 10 >> challenges, plus variables, memory model, operators, importing a module, >> numpy arrays, slicing and indexing, methods for objects, plotting with >> matplotlib, and some strings. The estimated time is 30 minutes, which >> leaves me with ~2 mins per concept and 1 minute per challenge, where I'm >> supposed to correctly type and run more than 50 lines of code. I also have >> to show how iPython notebook works. I think this is not doable for the >> average novice learner and instructor. >> >> As I said, this is not specific to the Python lesson. In a workshop I >> taught last week, a similar situation with other lessons created a lot of >> frustration among the students and, specially, among the instructors and >> helpers (all first-timers but me). >> >> I understand that we all want to contribute to the lessons and add the >> last best thing, but we are risking that our lessons become more a >> self-study material, instead of something instructors can use in a workshop. >> >> Best, >> >> Ivan >> >> [1] >> http://swcarpentry.github.io/python-novice-inflammation/01-numpy.html >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing > [email protected]http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org > > > -- > Dr. Greg Wilson | [email protected] > Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists. > software-carpentry.org
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