Thank you for your response, Inigo. Actually, in our experience teaching git/GitHub as a separate, isolated item had come with an unnecessary cognitive burden that we reduced by integating it with Shell. The audiences we worked with were researchers (grad students, postdocs, staff, faculty) and were driven to acquire additional skills to help them with their research and data analysis objectives. Not by the intent to go out and "learn Unix," or "learn programming," or "learn git/GitHub." Their primary objective was and is to solve problems and to learn whatever tools are needed to address a challenge. If then the challenge becomes to access a file shared by the instructor and alter it as part of the Shell session, then accessing this file on GitHub, messing with it and pushing altered versions back to their own GitHub accounts turns actually into rather effortless adoptions of the practises required to use git to achieve the objectives of accessing, updating and sharing a data file.
So, from my experiecne having observed this at work during a few runs of the workshop my anser to your question about "too much cognitive load" is "No." Does this make any sense? Uwe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Uwe Hilgert, Ph.D. Associate Research Professor Director of Industry Relations, Workforce Development & STEM Training BIO5 Institute (http://www.bio5.org), The University of Arizona (http://www.arizona.edu) O 520-626-1367 | F 520-626-4824 -----Original Message----- From: Inigo Aldazabal Mensa [mailto:inigo_aldaza...@ehu.eus] Sent: Friday, March 02, 2018 1:51 AM To: Hilgert, Uwe K K - (hilgert) <hilg...@email.arizona.edu> Cc: Byron Smith <bsmit...@gmail.com>; Software Carpentry Discussion <discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Fwd: Default git/python lesson order Hi all, Sorry for the late reply, it seems we are having email problems here... About integrating shell and git... isn't this too much cognitive load? And about doing Git as the last lesson, I think Byron raises some really good points there. We'll have to think more about this. Iñigo On Thu, 1 Mar 2018 22:49:40 +0000 "Hilgert, Uwe K K - (hilgert)" <hilg...@email.arizona.edu> wrote: > Please don’t forget the option we have adopted at the UA, that is to > integrate shell and git. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > Uwe Hilgert, Ph.D. > > Associate Research Professor > Director of Industry Relations, Workforce Development & STEM Training > BIO5 Institute (http://www.bio5.org), The University of Arizona > (http://www.arizona.edu) O 520-626-1367 | F 520-626-4824 > > From: Discuss [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.software-carpentry.org] > On Behalf Of Byron Smith Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 9:17 AM > To: Software Carpentry Discussion > <discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org> Subject: [Discuss] Fwd: > Default git/python lesson order > > On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Maneesha Sane > <manee...@carpentries.org<mailto:manee...@carpentries.org>> wrote: > > I agree, I don't see a big difference in the two schedules Iñigo > proposed. > > My intuition (supported by some anecdotal evidence) is that learners > will be worn out on Python/R if they're taught in one contiguous > block. I much prefer splitting the programming language across two > days not only to give the instructor a break, but also so that > learners have time to stew on it. Teaching shell and git on separate > days has a similar effect, since the latter is a good review of the > former. > > On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Maneesha Sane > <manee...@carpentries.org<mailto:manee...@carpentries.org>> wrote: > [...] by the end of Day 2, instructors and learners alike are quite > tired making it harder to introduce an entirely new concept like git > that afternoon. [...] So I'd recommend against doing git the afternoon > of day 2. > > On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 11:55 AM, April Wright > <wright.apr...@gmail.com<mailto:wright.apr...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I agree with Maneesha about not introducing git in the second > afternoon. Git can be challenging, and hard to understand in terms of > the motivation for use. > > I'll argue for git as the last session; I'm a little bit surprised > that no one else has. I like putting git last because: > > * it reinforces and complements the "reproducibility" thread > that's implicit in all of the lessons; > * you can refer back to the other lessons (writing code) to > motivate version control; > * you can calibrate the cognitive load based on how engaged > learners are; > * some of the alternative storylines have opportunities for > humor, and collaboration is always exciting, both of which do a lot to > keep learners' attention. We've used this schedule (shell, python, > python, git) in almost all of the workshops I have been involved with. > It's kinda interesting that I haven't overlapped with the other camps > a whole lot. > > Not that we need to enforce one on instructors, but it's challenging > to take an evidence-based approach to recommending a schedule. Few > instructors have a large enough sample size to overcome the > variability between workshops and confidently endorse one of the two. > Can we do any assessment based on exit surveys? Which schedule gets > the best ratings? > > -Byron > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.software-carpentry.org http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss
