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add teacher & TA cheat sheets
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First, thanks for volunteering your time to TA a workshop. Here we've tried to
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capture tips to make your experience, and your student's, better.
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# First, Do No Harm
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The <strong>most important</strong> thing you can do as a TA is to make people
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feel they are in a <strong>safe learning environment</strong>. The worst outcome
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is for a student to leave frustrated, confused, or belittled and never wanting
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to try programming again.
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# Troubleshoot Problems
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The most important job of a TA is to help students who are stuck on a step so
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that the whole class does not have to wait for them.
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## Make yourself available for questions and troubleshooting
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Some amount of struggling is part of learning, but if someone looks frustrated,
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offer a simple "Anything I can help with?" At the same time, try not to hover.
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# Help the Teacher Read the Room
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In general, teachers, especially new ones, tend to go too quickly. If you can
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tell students are confused, try offering to repeat your own explanation
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of a concept. Even just hearing it again can help and spark new questions.
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If you can tell someone is flying through the material (which often manifests
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as impatiently checking their phone as they wait for others) casually mention they
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are free to move up to the next level class if this class is moving too slowly.
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# Help with Logistics
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Volunteer to keep track of when it's time for breaks. This is super helpful!
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# Learn from Your Teacher
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Most teachers begin as TAs. Note what does and doesn't work about the class and
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use that if you get the opportunity to teach.
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First, thanks for volunteering your time to teach a workshop. Here we've
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tried to capture tips to make your experience, and your student's, better.
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# First, Do No Harm
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The <strong>most important</strong> thing you can do as a teacher is to make
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people feel they are in a <strong>safe learning environment</strong>. The worst
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outcome is for a student to leave frustrated, confused, or belittled and never
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wanting to try programming again.
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# Plugging In, Setting Up
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## Teacher & TA Huddle
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It can be really helpful to talk with your TAs briefly before you begin and set
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the tone that your classroom will be a collaborative experience, not just a
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lecture. If any of them are up for it, you can have them teach a section or even
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just explain or diagram a tricky concept like databases. But don't push people
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if they aren't ready.
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## Laptop Setup
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* Get your screen on the monitor or projector. This is never 100% foolproof!
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* Zoom your browser and text editor fonts.
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* Disable any potential popups like work email, etc
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## Try to Put Yourself in a Student's Shoes
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If you code all day for your job, it's easy to switch windows without stating
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your intent, and use all sorts of timesaving shortcuts without even realizing
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it.
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* Always annouce keyboard shortcuts and commands, along with
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<strong>where</strong> to run them. Beginner students often get don't know
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the difference between bash, IRB, the Rails console, etc.
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* If you want, you can try
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[https://github.com/keycastr/keycastr](KeyCastr) which will display shortcuts as you
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type but be careful if you type passwords ;-)
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* Be explicit: "Let's go back to our <strong>text editor</strong> and find
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the <strong>topics.css</strong> file in the app/assets/stylesheets folder so we
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can change the style."
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# How to Begin the Class
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Go around the room and have people introduce themselves. You can use
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icebreaker techniques like having people name their favorite SF structure,
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to use one example.
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It's also tremendously helpful if everyone states what they want to learn.
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This can be really useful in higher levels to tailor the content to
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what the students want.
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If it's clear that the class is generally at a lower level that the color, slow
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down accordingly. It's also a good time to remind them that anyone is free to
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change levels at any time, especially if it sounds like some students are
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already at a higher level.
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# Roadmap
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* Many people like to know the destination before they begin the journey so
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don't skip the "Objectives" part of each session
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* The less advanced levels won't finish the entire curriculum so it's good to
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tell them that upfront and remind them they can come back next time or try the
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rest on their own
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# Pacing
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* Hint: almost all new teachers go <strong>too fast</strong>
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* Repeat, repeat, repeat
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* Stop a lot so that the slowest person can catch up to the fastest
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* If almost everyone is done, ask a TA to help any students who are stuck and
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move on
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* You can also use pauses while TAs are helping troubleshoot to ask questions
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or suggest things to try.
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# Ask Questions!
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* "What do you think will happen when I run this command?"
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* Give generous pauses (count to 10!) after asking questions
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* Don't be afraid to call on people by name
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* Simply asking "Does everyone understand?" or "Any questions?" tends to
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mask confusion. Be specific!
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# Whiteboards
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If you have whiteboards, take advantage of them. Ask a TA to write
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out new vocab there so it won't disappear as you move through slides.
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Many people are visual learners so diagrams can be very helpful too.
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# Breaks!
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* <strong>Don't forget about the breaks</strong>. It's easy to get into flow
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and forget.
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* Use a timer on your phone or ask one of the TAs to be a Timekeeper
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* Try to politely leave the room yourself. It can be easy to spend all the breaks
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answering questions. Teaching is a ton of work. Give yourself a break too!
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# Wrapping Up
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* Set aside 10-15 minutes at the end for questions
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* Hopefully you've got at least some students who are hooked by this whole
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world of coding and want to learn more so share your favorite resources
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* Ask the TAs and students to do the same
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* Many students use online tutorials and can recommend good ones
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## Final Words
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* Remind them how much they accomplished
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* Encourage students and volunteers to come to the after-party
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* Encourage everyone to come back again
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* Encourage them to stick around for the final presentation and retro
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# Prep
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The best prep is to read through the curriculum and do it yourself.
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# More Resources
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If you have time, you can read the full slide deck that this doc was adapted
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from, as well as these general links about teaching.
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* [Teacher & TA Training Slide Deck](more_teacher_training)

sites/en/workshop/workshop.md

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### Teacher Training
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* [Teacher Training Deck](more_teacher_training)
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* [Teacher Cheat Sheet](teacher_cheat_sheet) - A TL;DR version of the deck
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* [TA Cheat Sheet](ta_cheat_sheet) - A doc geared especially for first-time TAs
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# Materials for Organizers
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