A better way to teach technical skills to a group

I've been reading Jane McGonigal's "Reality is Broken" this semester and think she has some great suggestions on how to get students to learn - make it an attainable goal. Videos games do this well, she argues, because the player can see that a goal (say, the end of a level) is entirely possible, given the skills you've learned and demonstrated before.

For my programming courses, I give 3 different types of assignments each week: a typing exercise, a Q/A style set of questions, then a problem. No "make a loop print the numbers 1 to 5", but something like "implement standard deviation".

I've talked about the typing exercises before on HN, give the students a picture of code and make them retype it. They can't copy-paste, which is one of the mistakes of beginners, plus it gives them a fully functioning implementation of that week's topic. It doesn't have to be huge, something like 50-100 lines (this is Java, so that isn't as much as it seems). Students have given it a positive response this past semester and I'll be adding it to some other classes as well.

The Q/A questions are traditional multiple choice/true-false/fill in the blank style questions. I won't lie, it's blatantly taken from MIT's Open edX 6.01 course, though tweaked to prevent Googling. The questions range from simple concepts like what is the end result of a conditional statement, to number of loops, to having to implement a small amount of code to determine the next integer in a seeded random. McGonigal discusses how in a game, the risk of failure is reduced by allowing the player infinite tries. If they fail, they don't get slapped with a 0, they are free to try the question set as many times until they get the 100%. You have to be careful, otherwise you'll get the person that just guesses, but overall it is a successful tool.

Finally, the problem sets are again similar to MIT's 6.01 course. This is actually my current pain point, as I need to implement an automatic grader to repeat the infinite tries from above. They are given the problem, along with some test cases of what to expect. This is the first assignment that doesn't have a clear A to B section, which is done purposely to facilitate their problem solving skills. To help, I do the same thing as the author by making my class time lab time. I do like the ideas of paired programming and Post-Its, so I might look to implement them in the future.

The big thing I'd same McGonigal's book suggests is "Make the assignment seem attainable". This helps defeat the stereotype threat. If step 1 each week is literally "retype this program", it gets harder for a student to say "I can't do this".

Even better - invert the classroom and deliver the info via computer or video, so people can pause or rewind it. Then use the groups for the "homework problems" and individual attention!

Minor note, but it's awesome that students outside network analysis courses are learning to use Gephi! It's such a cool and easy-to-use tool. I regretted not doing as much network theory in my CS education--I only really got into it after despite my favorite professor being a network theory researcher. Gephi makes playing around with graph datasets and transforming them into useful visual representations so easy--it's like the Excel of network theory, which is awesome. Despite the criticism often hurled at (and in many ways, rightly-deserved criticism) Excel, it is, if nothing else, accessible.

I love the status by Post It Notes. Definitely going to do this in the future.

My experience lies in "quick start" technical training, largely centered on CAD software for engineers. They are generally a tough crowd, and they demonstrate many of the behaviors mentioned in this great piece.

Over time, I also centered in on not having a follow along. It just never works! People are too diverse in their skills and how they process information. Plus, there are the ones who are able to follow me perfectly, but don't seem to catch the concepts at the same time. I see them rushing through bits here and there attempting to get it their way, or at their own pace.

There are a few things I would add to this method:

1. Play foot ball coach. There is this task ahead, and it's the documented one. Show 'em the highlights and talk through "the play", setting expectations and putting them on watch for a few "gotchas" they may experience. Don't do the whole thing. Just the highlights as a mixed mode, lecture for concepts, quick demo to actualize key things they want to know. Leave the easy stuff to their own self-discovery.

2. This one may be a bit controversial, but I've had awesome results with it.

Prepare to leave the room. You will actually leave for a few minutes too. Setup a simple problem for them to solve, and lecture through the bits they need to solve it. Provide documentation on those same bits.

Just prior to leaving, tell them why and that you will be right back in 10 minutes or so.

The reason you are leaving is to get them to question. In fact, the more they question, the better it will be when you return! Instruct them to write their questions down, or queue them however they want to, and to talk among themselves, and finally, that you will demonstrate one or more solutions to the little problem they are about to attempt.

If they attempt it and have success, that's great. If they attempt it and fail, those questions are exactly the ones they need answers to, and the best way to get at them is to actualize the struggle well enough for them to pose them meaningfully.

Then just leave. It doesn't have to be long, nor should it.

Be sure and return while they are still supposed to be working. You can hand out a little help individually, and or share experiences with some of the students who did see success and are choosing to do the same.

When the time is up, it's up.

Direct their attention to your part of the room, and walk through the solutions. This will generally be an interactive experience, filled with their comments, questions, comparisons and contrasts of solution methods, etc...

Then grant them a little more time to take one of those solutions and solve with it. The ones who didn't have success will likely get some, and those that did will explore a different solution.

3. Take time to lecture on some of the best practices, and the why and how behind how things are. These can be very informative and helpful sessions. Often, there are ways to think, and there are the ways the software or system creators think. Understanding both of those can really help with intuitive discovery and solution finding.

In these, the basic ideas behind whatever it is get put into context, case studies, work experience stories, whatever makes sense.

4. Free time allowance.

Each day, make sure there is some unstructured time. People often want to explore something they discovered in class, or they just didn't have success with one or more of the lessons and concepts.

This allowance of time is for closure that day. They can get some remedial help to get past a problem area, or they can free style and apply what they learned, etc...

If appropriate, allocate a larger block of this time near the end of the course and encourage them to bring problems to class. Everyone collaborates, shares and builds, or writes, or whatever it is with you facilitating productive activity.

I have found these things to be extremely helpful and productive in adult learning scenarios of various kinds.

My alternative to the post-it system: high-fives

I teach a course introducing students to making plain webpages in HTML/CSS/JS. We haven't tried the group aspect yet, instead we have people pair program - one laptop between every two students, with them switching 'drivers' every 10 minutes or so, driver types while the other person narrates what's to be done and points out typos etc.

When a pair reaches the goal for a particular task, I ask to high-five loudly. Not only does this help them get more comfortable with each other (they're complete strangers and only come together for this single day course), but it livens up the room a bit while giving me feedback and without being too threatening to those who are still working.