5 Techniques to Up Your Teaching Game

Everyone is a teacher.

(Especially Devs)

Why do I have opinions?

• Extremely interested in education - particularly code + education
• Music Education degree
• Taught in public school system for a few years
• Taught for about a year at Galvanize
• Currently flex my skills as a workshop facilitator for Develop Denver, ChickTech, Thinkful

Objectives of This L&L

• Describe the 5 techniques from this talk
• Appraise the practicality of each technique

disclaimer

Technique: Reject Self Report

Replace functionally rhetorical questions with questions that can provide you true insight to a learner's understanding. A teacher must renounce their assumptions of performance.

Practice

Brainstorm replacement questions.

Technique: Right is Right

Almost correct answers are not the same as completely correct answers.

Psychology has proven that our behaviors are shaped in part by the responses we get from others. If a half-assed solution is accepted as correct, a person may continue to produce half-assed solutions.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Practice

What would you say in response to an almost right solution?

Technique: Culture of Error

To be an efficient learner, a person must  be comfortable making mistakes. 

Teachers and other learners should expect mistakes and normalize them.

If a learner is uncomfortable providing an incorrect answer, it's stressful for the student and the teacher can't gather quality data.

Practice

Pair up and ask each other basic math questions. 

Answer incorrectly and respond with language that supports a culture of error.

Technique: Wait Time

Lack of an accurate wait time results in answers that are not as well-thought out as they could be. To get more correct answers, allow for adequate wait time.

Practice

• Using table topics, ask your partner a question. 

• Ask your partner a second question but explicitly provide 15 seconds of wait time. 

Table Topics

• How would you describe your ideal vacation?
• What did you eat for each meal yesterday?
• What did you do for your birthday when you were 10?
• What is your favorite restaurant and why?
• What do you enjoy most about your hobby?
• What is the plot to your favorite show?

Technique: At Bats

Practicing something several times is necessary to learn it. 

Numerous “at bats” allows general mastery of a topic or skill; and, repetition work ensures that when things do not go as expected a student will have plenty of cognitive space to overcome an obstacle because the rudimentary parts of a skill or topic have become muscle memory to the learner.  

Practice

Think to yourself about the last time you learned a new syntax, a new management process, a new program, a new board game, a new instrument,  etc.

Reject

Self

Report

Right

Is

Right

Culture

of

Error

Wait

Time

At

Bats

Objectives of This L&L

• Describe the 5 techniques from this talk
• Appraise the practicality of each technique

PLUGS

• Remote Talk Prep Workshop
• Won't You Be My Neighbor?
• Vue Slots in 8 Minutes or Less

• What Is A Graph Database? (Kyle)

• Git saved my career (Vince)

• Improving on Express (Brian)

• Empty Promises in Javascript (Brian)