[python-advocacy] vaporclass: a bring-your-own-project Python workshop

[Catherine Devlin]

Hi, Pythonistas!

I've thunked up a vaporware structure for an ev angelical Python
class/workshop to put on.  It's based on the way I tend to want to learn,
hoping that I'm not that unusual.  I'd like to get peoples' comments/ideas,
especially if you've ever experienced a class like this.

Here's how it would go.

Before the workshop, attendees decide on a program they'd like to create,
something they'd genuinely appreciate for their own use.  They e-mail this
to the instructor, who confirms that the scope isn't overly (or underly)
ambitious for the workshop.  Sample ideas will be available for those who
don't have their own.  (Project suggestions are an easy way to contribute to
this concept!)  But students are very strongly encouraged to create their
own; project ownership is a big part of the workshop concept.

Students bring wireless-enabled laptops.  Of course, if the class can be
held someplace that has networked computers already installed, then we can
leave the laptops out - so much the better!

When they arrive, everybody brings up a class webpage.  This has a good
index to material about Python and topical material, a springboard for their
research or reading-ahead.

The instructor starts to lecture... but not for long.  Snippets of
lecture/demo, perhaps 5 minutes each, are interspersed with chunks of time
for students to experiment, to read, and to work on their projects.  During
that time, the instructor (and assisting coaches, if available) circulate
among the students, helping them over roadblocks.  And, of course, students
are encouraged to do the same for each other.

When the instructor is covering material the students already know, they are
-encouraged- to zone out and zoom on ahead.  Each slide has a little course
outline with the current topic highlighted, to help the students figure out
at a glance when they need to zone back in.

The workshop may have multiple starting times, i.e., "9:00 for first-time
programmers, 10:00 for programmers new to object-orientation, 10:30 for
experienced OO programmers".

By the end of the workshop, each student should be finished with, or well
underway with, their project.  They'll have basic Python skills, and will
really understand what we mean when we sing about Python's productivity and
practicality.

I like the workshop format because, to me, learning seems to happen best at
the interfaces between class instruction, interpersonal discussion, personal
reading, and hands-on experimenting.  The switching-points between the four
modes seem to be the most productive ones, when I take an idea from one mode
and apply it in another.  Unbroken hours of any one mode just don't do as
much.  Hands-on workshops maximize those learning-rich switching-points.

The big difference with regular workshops is the bring-your-own-project
aspect.  My hope is that this would help show people that Python will be
useful -to them-, in the work they care about.  It's really hard to move
patiently through a demo while thinking "I'll never actually need to use
this", and demo projects that somebody has pre-decided (and pre-solved) lack
that excitement of ownership and creation.  It makes the whole thing a lot
less deterministic, not knowing which directions the students will be going
in, but I think that's an acceptable price - maybe even a good thing.  Sure,
the instructor will be stumped sometimes, but "how to research for
solutions" will be part of the class, too!  (That's definitely an important
topic usually neglected by texts, anyway.)  And maybe students will be even
more excited if the students around them aren't just competitors to race
against toward the single finish line, but examples of flowering and diverse
creativity.

Thoughts?  Personally, I'd like to do one of these in my area as soon as I
can muster the time (ha!) and the courage (ha!) - maybe in time for the Ohio
LinuxFest on Sep. 30 (ha!).  If anybody would like to drive out to Columbus
to help with that, I'll take you to Ben & Jerry's.  :)

The concept also needs a clever name.  Everything in open-source needs a
clever name.  And an animal mascot.

Thoughts, anyone?

-- 
- Catherine
http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/
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