The Present and Future of

Web Development Bootcamp Curricul(a/um)* 

2/27/17

The good news!

After much revision and iteration over past 6 months, curricula are in a good spot

Problems to solve

  • Misalignment with our core user:
    • consume 4 separate curricula
    • instead of teaching full stack web development, we teach things in isolation
  • Missing opportunity to produce Thinkful-branded developer
  • Mentor buy-in and alignment
  • Repetition and practice
  • Learning from mistakes in past on iteration and release

Content changes...

  • Immediate:
    • Turn additional study/reading into a feature rather than a bug
      • Crowdsourcing mentors for additional resources
      • Each lesson features additional resources 
    • Multiple solutions for challenges/drills
  • Soon:
    • To begin, minimal change to combine into single curriculum
    • Then start iterating on that content to tailor for needs of core user (repetition, removing some content)
    • Opinionation: a11y / progressive enhancement / product engineering at core, not afterthought

Process changes...

  • Take advantage of the "steady state" by being more strategic in iteration and release
    • Testing new content with handful of students and being in close contact before releasing to general public.
  • Greater visibility for mentors into pedagogy / reasoning behind learning journey.

Product changes...

  • Modularity to the nth degree 
  • Video unit/lesson introductions
  • Targeted releases
  • Robust solution for drills
  • Self assessments

deck

By Ben White

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