People are Coming to My Beginning Workshop, What Now? by Nicholle James

Speaker 1: Come on, no.

Speaker 2: Hi, before I start, I'm going to say my thank yous in advance because otherwise I'm gonna forget. So Ashish Laroya, I don't know if you know him But he helped with the Boston Ladies Workshop and he helped me out a lot with this. Um and if you want to know the sources for my stuff, send me an email. I will get them to you. All right. Nope. All right. So this is me in Fine Pictures. Hi. Um I love math so much that I majored in it in school. Um I should have a bachelor 's in math education. If you want to know why it should instead of do, see me afterwards. It's a long story.

Speaker 2: I don't have time. I love pictures of silly cats. You will probably never find me without some form of needlepoint or cross stitch in my bag. And the most important part that you need to remember is I play the oboe. And the reason why that's important is because if you look at my contact information, I am the oboe chick. Alright, so and I really really really want to help you. That's why I'm here today. I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong, that you're doing things bad. Um I am just here to try and give you tips to make the user experience for beginners to coding better. Alright, so now that we've got there, let's talk about the first thing that people see When it comes to your workshop.

Speaker 2: And it's not you. It is the title to your workshop. So how many of you here have taken, say, a linear algebra class? All right, how many take a single variable calculus? Multivariable calculus? Yay! Okay, so in three hours, if I were to tell you, in three hours my workshop is going to be I'm going to make linear algebra or single and multivariable calculus simple. What are you thinking?

Speaker 3: Uh-huh.

Speaker 2: So I can tell you most people who have never seen these topics before are going to be thinking, they're gonna be like Whoa, I don't think it's ever going to be simple. So let's put this in the context of a topic that you know. This is one that I did not actually go to, but this is a topic that I pulled from the PyCon workshops list. Practical analysis made simple. Okay, well the first thing that I see is practical analysis net practical network analysis. Okay, great. I want to know more about that. I show up. I find out that it's an intermediate level workshop. Okay, if you're like me and most people are, you don't read past the title.

Speaker 2: You don't read what's in the description So you want to make sure that what is in your title describes what you plan to do for your workshop. And you don't want to promise things that you can't actually Give. So making something simple, you're not going to make it simple for everyone. So while I can make something that is from multivariable calculus really easy for someone who Is understands math really well, I could not make it sound easy to someone who's only had algebra. So instead of saying practical network analysis made simple Why don't we say an intermediate level guide to practical network analysis? This tells us that it's an intermediate level workshop.

Speaker 2: It also tells us that We're there to guide them in their journey of learning practical network analysis. So when we're tiling things, it's very important that we label it so that They get as much information as possible because not everybody reads the abstract. So you want your title to be as descriptive as possible Um that said, who's going to show up to your workshop? Well, you're gonna have people who are like me, who are clueless. Um who maybe they've played around with the computer, but chances are this is their first time going to a coding thing.

Speaker 2: They're really stepping out there. This is really uncomfortable for them They're there because they want to learn. And then you're going to have people who have degrees, who are working in the industry Who I like to call the know-it-alls. It's not a bad thing. It just means that they already know a lot, and you're not here for them. You're here for the people who are learning, the beginners The people who are here who work in the industry or they have the degrees, they can probably figure out your workshop. Even if you skip steps, the beginners are not going to be able to. So make sure that when you're writing your steps, you're writing down as many of those steps as you can Because if you go from step A to step G, someone who works in the industry will probably understand it.

Speaker 2: But someone who's just starting out like me, it's gonna be really frustrating Because we're not gonna realize that say we have to switch tabs and then in that new tab we have to find a menu and there's like six menus and then we have to find the right one, we finally find the right one, okay great, we go down and then we have to go to a side menu. How are we supposed to know this? So make sure that you put every step in there. If you need to, screenshots and arrows are amazing. Um all right. So what can you do if you show up and there's 20 to 50 people and you have One, two , maybe no helpers. What are you going to do?

Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you how they do it in the math world. How many of you have taken a math class? It's everybody, right? Okay, how many of you have seen your teacher standing up in the front, writing on the chalkboard, and then you're supposed to copy down the notes, right? Well what do we call that in the programming world? We call that live coding. Alright? So it happens. It's a practice that happens all the time. Okay, well then your thought is okay. Well Ha! I made a mistake!

Speaker 3: What

Speaker 2: am I gonna do? Okay, well this is good. When you are in front of a bunch of people and you make mistakes That does not mean that you're bad, that you don't know what you're doing. What it is is it's saying, hey, I know how to make a mistake. It's okay. People who are starting out are not comfortable making mistakes. If you've ever like gone to a new class and they tell you to do something new and they ask for a volunteer, it's not often that you'll get everybody to volunteer. You'll maybe get one or two The reason for that is they're not comfortable. They're out of their zone. So instead of like being upset about making a mistake, no, it's okay. It's you teaching them So

Speaker 2: say you get a syntax error. Hey, look, I forgot a colon. Well, three steps later you go again, hey, I forgot a colon again. Point it out every time because you can tell me hey yeah no everybody leaves out c colons it happens all the time I'm not gonna believe you until you say it until I see it it's something that it happens we all know it happens But until you show it, they're not gonna believe you. So keep that in mind. So now okay, you're live coding in the front of a bunch of people.

Speaker 3: I'll show you that many.

Speaker 2: But you have say 30 people, everybody's asking questions. You're one person. You can't answer everybody's questions, so what can you do to kind of help with that? Well, pair programming is great. So, parent programming, two people, one computer. But then you go, okay, well I can do that, but everybody wants to do the workshop on their computer. Okay, well that's fine. We can adjust this a little bit. So what I like to do is I like to say, okay, everybody with Let's just pretend three or more years of experience. We're gonna put you on that wall. Everybody else, we're putting you on that wall. Okay, once we have everybody separated, we're gonna take one person from this wall, one person from this wall, we're gonna put you together.

Speaker 2: Okay, every less experienced person is going to have a more experienced person with them. The first thing you tell them to do is, okay, I want you to talk to the person next to you before you talk to me. If you can't figure it out, then you ask me. By doing this, you will eliminate somewhere between a third to half the questions that are there. And they get to have the added bonus of figuring it out for themselves, which means that they're more likely to remember it. So even if they have to ask someone else, it's better than them asking you. Alright. So let's go into why people ask questions because this is a very important thing.

Speaker 2: People ask questions because they don't understand what you're asking. If I say, hey, hand me a clip. Well the question is, am I asking you for a paper clip? Am I asking for you for a hair clip? Am I asking you for a clip to like clamp wood, like what am I asking you to do? Well let's pretend that I want to have a clip to clamp two pieces of wood together, but you're thinking, hey, a hair clip. Well if I go on Google and I Google or you go on Google and you Google hair clips and I go no no you're doing the like that's wrong. Well it doesn't matter how often you Google hair clip, you're not gonna get wood clamp. So think of it as everybody has a different vocabulary. Nobody's going to be thinking the same thing, and because of that

Speaker 2: Googling it isn't going to be the best answer for everybody. They may not know what question to ask So don't be upset if they ask you a question. It's not them being stupid. It's not them not understanding per se. It's more them not knowing what you're asking them to do So them asking questions also gives you a metric for how well you are doing and lets you know what you need to fix. So questions are very good. Yes. So what if they don't ask questions? So here's a few suggestions, because I know that I'm one of those people who I really hate

Speaker 2: like raising my hand and In front of a bunch of people and being like, hey, I have this question, and that's really not me. There's a lot of people like me. Okay, so what do you do if you have them? So if you're standing in front, you're doing this kind of lecture style because you don't have any Helpers. Well, I love post-tickers. So I can only find blue and yellow. These are great. Because I could say, okay, stick this on the back of your laptop. I'm doing well. It just goes on the back of your laptop. Everybody behind them cannot see it. If they have a question, they can stick the other one on there. So the question is, what if they're colorblind? Well that's really easy to fix.

Speaker 2: All you have to do is write a word on it These are really easy, simple, cheap. You don't have to worry about it. If say you want to ask a question, putting it in a yes or no question will make it so that like They just have to stick it on the back of their computer. They don't have to raise their hand. It's really simple. It gets everybody involved. You get an answer from everybody. Alright, note cards. Note cards are great. Set out a note card on every spot before the thing or have everybody pick up a note card. This is anonymous. All they do is they write your questions. Almost every workshop I've been to, there's been at least one break. Before the break, you pick up all the cards

Speaker 2: You read through them, chances are you'll find where there are holes in your workshop, and you can go back and cover those things before you move on after the break. It will help people a lot better. Um last thing and this one's my favorite, notebooks. I love these little notebooks that they provide. I use them a lot. If you want to come see mine, you can come see mine. I use them for what functions are, vocabulary words I don't know. I like to use colored pens, but not everybody has pens and if you're providing pens just like one pen will work. It's just for them to write their notes. If I have a question and there's no one around to answer it

Speaker 2: I can write the question down and leave a space and then move on. So notebooks are great, and then the best part is they can take them home. And when they take them home, they can then use them for their own projects or for the next workshop that they go to, that kind of thing. It works out really, really well. So, I want to give an example. Django Girls. They have probably the best summary for Python that I have seen. And I'm going to do something a little dangerous. See if I can get it to work. Okay. Alright, so this is really

Speaker 2: really well written. I have not no problems with what's written here. The problem that I have, okay, if you can watch the scroll bar, okay, we're going through strings We get to the summary. Okay, I've done a lot, but look, I'm not done. I still have all this stuff left to go. I'm not even a quarter of the way done. Can you guys see that? You guys can't see this. The scroll bar is like an eighth of the way down the page. I guess it's there in the very, very far corner. Um, so having a lot on Your page is really daunting. I see this like I'm not that far down the page and I go, oh my goodness, I'm already feeling overwhelmed. My brain is kind of done I don't want to keep going

Speaker 2: because I see how much more I have to do before I can even get started. Okay, so how do we fix this? Well we break it up. And we break it up Sorry. Yeah. So we break it up into small pages, kind of like a PowerPoint. Have you ever played a game like on the computer and you've had to click a lot? That clicking is there for a reason. Every time you click is a response to well it sends a message to your brain saying, hey, something's happening. This is good So every time they have to flip a page, they're not going to see that the book is really long.

Speaker 2: They're just going to see, hey, look at these pages. See how fast I'm going through them? It's kind of like math books. They don't give you the entire like five chapters. They take them one chapter at a time and then each chapter is broken up into sections. They do that to make it seem more doable. So using that in programming is really helpful. And I'm going to talk about the next thing which I think is super, super important. I really, really despise showing up for a workshop. And the first thing that I hear is, oh yeah, I finished this last night. Which is great. But my thought is wonderful. I'm going to be a test subject.

Speaker 2: Which means I'm not going to learn anything today. Because I'm going to get so far, I'm gonna find a bug, and then I'm gonna have to find someone to fix it. And by the time the person has done fixing it, they've skipped the next six steps because they've had to work around it. And so I've skipped six steps So I keep going, find another bud , someone has to fix it again, skip another six steps. So I end up doing like three and ten steps, and by the time I'm done, I don't remember anything I've not learned anything. So it's really important that you test it before you go Or before you run it. When I was student teaching, we had to turn in our lesson plans, but we could not turn them in until we'd had them

Speaker 2: checked by three other classmates. It doesn't matter if they're at the same level as you, if they're more advanced than you, if they're not as advanced as you, they will find something Test it, please. It will make everybody's life better. And finally, have an exit interview or a survey. This is probably the most important thing that I'm going to say today because if you don't know how you're doing after you're done, how are you going to fix it? How do you know what you can make better and what you can't, particularly if no one's talking to you? If no one's talking to you, may I do good? May I do bad?

Speaker 2: Ah, who knows? Okay, so if you don't have an extra bit review, email me. I have one, you can use it. Um These are really important and it should be given in the last 15 minutes of your tutorial or workshop. And the reason why I say that is because you email it to them, it's kind of like those surveys that they email you after you've either gone to see a doctor or you've gone to a conference or something. And you see it in your email box and you're like, okay, well I don't have time to do that now. I'll do it later. And then later never happens So them doing it here while they're here, they know what works, they know what doesn't work, they know what they liked, they know what they didn't like. If they got to the end of the workshop,

Speaker 2: What topic do they want to explore next? If you want to write a different workshop, you can find out all that information before they left the room. It's really helpful. So what should you remember? Word choice is important. Write the workshop for the beginner, not for the advanced people who are there. Find alternative ways to get people to ask questions. Break it up. No more than three things on the page at the time, whether that's an instruction or an explanation. Either way, it makes it easier for the brain to process while still getting them moving.

Speaker 2: Test it. Make sure that it's tested. And finally, make sure that the last 15 minutes are for the exit interview. So I am more than happy to help you. Use my email and my Twitter. I'm not very good at Twitter, so if you tweet me a message, it'll probably be a few weeks before I get back to you. So email me please. But I will be around. If you want have a tutorial or a workshop you're working on, feel free to come ask me questions. I'll be here during the sprints sword. Kind of out and about. So thank you.

Speaker 2: The tech defending what I came in.