You heard about Rails Girls and want to be a coach? Here you’ll find all you need to know what coaching actually means.
First of all, Coaches are patient, tolerant and open people! This goes for everything, but also for technologies and solutions you might not chose for yourself. Whether or not you like RSpec or TestUnit, ERB or Haml, or whatever text editor you prefer does not matter to students at all. They are in a learning position and whatever gets them started, curious and eager to learn is a perfect tool – no matter your personal preferences. Keep in mind that your preferences – just like "common knowledge of the community" – is a result of a long, long learning process which you, and the community have gone through. Give your students the same chance to discover. Our goal is to get people started, learning and staying excited about coding!
Advise on setting up the project plan: the plan should take a learning curve into account. While it can be difficult to estimate the initial skill-level and the -progression, you are likely to anticipate potential pitfalls and should communicate them accordingly. Help with some "stretch goals": the project plan may be laid out defensively, timewise, to allow for some yet unknown challenges. In the event that an unforeseen obstacle delays the teams' progression, it's rewarding and encouraging to still have the sense of a completed project and it's even more fulfilling if your team has indeed exceeded the actual plan by tackling additional optional features.
(here’s what we expect and previous examples…)
Students don’t need grasp for the stars, but rather for the apples on the tree. So they can climb up the tree, instead of having to build a space elevator. Ask your students what they already know and what exactly they want to learn. In short, figure out if they have an idea how to realize their idea and what’s part of the way.
Pair programming with a twist [FURTHER EXPLANATION]
During application (till end of April), a few hours a week. During the Summer (July to Sept), 1-2 hrs/day personal time plus chat/mail --> preferrably shared with a few other coaches (from a student’s perspective: they will continually run into stuff they need help with. Hence something like one day a week won’t be enough) --> ask your company to become a coaching sponsor and your coworkers to join
Good learning means taking little steps and repeating them. As a coach, avoid over-explaining in great length. Explain one aspect, hold your breath and see, how your students understood what you said. Be prepared to explain again.
Let your students do the coding. That also counts for solving problems that are kinda beside the recent project goal. Remember, the Summer of Code is about learning all the aspects of coding.
Pen & paper can be great tools to show how the code is working; e.g. the steps of how a variable from a views .erb is showing up in the HTML file in the browser.
Satisfy the curiosity of your students. The work on their project will spawn all of sorts of questions that are not directly related to their roadmap. Programming is a vast field – take your students on a tangent occasionally and explore how a web request is made, how a computer works or what all the different software licences are about.
There will be moments when your students won’t make sense out of what you say. You might feel you’re at your wits end, too. No worries. No one expects you to have all the answers. Just keep trying! We promise you one thing: You can look forward to the buzz you will feel when your students understand (finally!). Know that they will love you forever for your patience and generosity.
At RGSoC we have a network of mentors and people behind the helpdesk. Feel free to approach us whenever you reach a dead end. Also, ask your coworkers, ask the community and above all, don’t shy away from telling your students.
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