I carry around a little notebook with me all the time. When I'm teaching or meeting with someone I use it as my "extended working memory." I don't save the notebooks or revisit them. Once a notebook is filled I simply throw it away.
Well, with on exception: when I left DBC, I flipped through my most recent notebook, tore out any pages that grabbed my attention, and threw the rest away. These are those notes.
Note: some of the pages are dated and others aren't, so I have no idea what the chronological order is. These notes were written in June and July of 2013.
I've added editorial notes where relevant, denoted by [Ed: this sort of thing.]
Dated: 6/20/2013
- Maximize "lightbulb moments" per week
- There are always human factors — don't ignore them
- No grappling with tools until students grapple with problem
- Help students re-code confusion
- Mistakes are often opportunities, but not always
- Students improve at what they practice; make sure they're practicing hitting the ball, not chasing it
- We act on what we notice and novice's notice surprising things
- Beginners rarely have a beginner's mind
Dated: 6/24/2013
He says... [Ed: IIRC, this was me more-or-less taking dictation from Sherif.]
- Former FE engineer from IGN
- Felt intensity dropped off precipitously after Week 1
- Math guy
- Hates it when teachers can't get it to work, esp. the "Google it" response
- Shadi is the only one who looks at our code [Ed: This is underlined about 10 times.]
- Wishes we could've had Shadi all the way through
- Best way to learn HTTP is to see the sockets talking.
- Learning in Phase IV > all the other phases
[Ed: This is me writing, now.]
Let's be honest with ourselves: this student would have probably been better served by Hack Reactor or a "more rigorous" bootcamp.
A picture of an HTTP request cycle: POST -> URL -> Redirect. [Ed: It's a pretty awesome picture.]
[Ed: Again, dictation from Sherif.]
- Use "envelopes" metaphor for HTTP traffic
- Make the invisible visible
- Nate W. is confused about HTTP. :( [Ed: I actually drew a frowny face.]
- Zee went too fast when teaching simple HTTP server
- Myles: "Let's teach things students can't learn from blog posts." [Ed: This is circled.]
- Students perceive lack of focus
- Lens of something better [Ed: I don't know what this means. Educated guess, don't just show students how to get to top of the hill, but inspire them with what's waiting for them in the next valley.]
"Teacher" is a loaded word. Think of the 3 best teachers in your life. We want a school filled with only teachers like them — NO EXCEPTIONS.
Students have no shortcomings, they have only peculiarities. The job of a teacher is to turn these peculiarities into advantages.
— Israel Gelfand
The best teachers know how to explain things in terms/pictures/metahpors/etc. that their student understands. They can calibrate their explanations based on their student's background and prior context. They understand that the best explanations are given in their student's language, not the teacher's language, and that an essential part of their job is to show their student how to translate between the two.
They know that when it comes to what their student hears, their words are almost nothing relative to their student's pre-existing picture of the world. They are sensitive to the fact that students want to see patterns where non exist or where none were intended. A teacher knows that their student will almost always change what they hear to fit their pre-existing picture of the world long before they change their pre-existing picture of the world to fit what they hear.
The best teachers believe that, ultimately, everything can be explained. If a student isn't following along the problem lies in the teacher, not the student, and it's their job to figure out an approach that works.
The best teachers know their students better than their students know themselves. They can see and experience the world as their students do and job is not just to see that their students are confused, but how and why they are confused.
They can see their student's confusion more clearly than the student can and reflect/express it back to the student in terms the student can understand. They say, "Oh, are you picturing a red poodle on roller skates?" When their student says "Yes" they reply, "Everything about that is spot on, but the poodle is green, not red." A lightbulb goes off.
A student should like their teacher is "reading my mind" and "always knows how I'm feeling."
The best teachers know more than just what to say, they know how to say it. They know that once a student has checked out everything else is pointless. They can frame their thoughts and ideas so that their students can receive it, both factually and emotionally.
They are sensitive to the fact that what they do matters more than what they say. If a teacher says they're receptive to feedback but their body language, tone, and demeanor scream "impatient" and "frustrated", they are sending two messages:
- I don't really want feedback. Please stop inconveniencing me.
- I'm a hypocrite who is just telling you what I think you want to hear.
The best teachers are hypersensitive to this.
- Focus on fundamentals + the parts that change over decades, not the parts that change over months/years.
- Maximize frequency, duration, and quality of contact between the school, students, and the community.
- Cultivate long-term relationships with the community, especially via our alumni network.
- Trust our value. If the community sees the value we bring, they'll love bringing value to us.
This page is just filled with doodles. The only one is a picture I call my "Philip Glass" picture or "Fundamental Frequency" picture. You have 9-week, 3-week, 1-week, and 1-day periods or "rhythms." Each of these periods has their own independent arc — start, crescendo, decrescendo, stop — but they're also nested inside each other.
The idea is that each "sub-part" of the 9 weeks would reinforce the "super-part." Every day has its own local rhythm, but there is also a weekly rhythm it's playing in concert with. Every week has its own rhythm, too, but there is also a phase-long rhythm it's playing in concert with. Every phase has its own rhythm, but there is also a bootcamp-long rhtyhm it's playing in concert with.
Sorry, can't really draw it! See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/string.html#c3. Imagine if 9 weeks is the fundamental frequency L. We then have a 3rd harmonic, a 9th harmonic, and so on down to a day-long harmonic.