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The most effective learning is mimetic: it either directly demands productivity or engages the mirror neurons. Most of the workshop should be hands-on, either as a live-coding exercise following the instructor directly or as guided exercises. This is fairly demanding to administer (in case anything goes wrong on a learner’s workstation), so we need at least one helper per 25 participants.
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If students are working on their own machines, we can either expect them to run a fakezod directly or run one on the cloud.
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The rhythm of teaching should follow these principles:
- Have no more than 15–20 minutes of instruction without a break.
- Formative assessments should take place about every five minutes
- About every third or fourth formative assessment should take 5 minutes.
- 5-minute exercises should be carried out in groups of 3–5 students.
- About every hour there should be a short break. Encourage standing and walking about.
- Breaks should become slightly more frequent as the afternoon wanes.
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Learn names. Track participation and try to engage everyone.
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Have students introduce themselves to each other at the beginning.
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Encourage pair programming as the normative experience.
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Have helpers keep you on track time-wise (with breaks etc.).
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Use different color terminal windows for different sessions to help students visually distinguish.
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Read out what you are typing. Use the aural ASCII convention.
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Use a shared document (such as GDocs) for sharing longer code blocks. (Make sure your preferred mode doesn’t chomp Hoon whitespace).
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Take care of your voice. Let the microphone amplify. You have to last for 9+ hours!
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Use questions: https://www.polleverywhere.com/activities