Prep & Phase 0
Prep & Phase 0Where are we? Where are we going?
Maria Piper () - The Team
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Purpose of prep Circle
To prepare students culturally and technically to thrive at
DBC
Prep vs. phase 0
Prep
Problems beforePrep was designed to give students:Things to
study before entering Phase 0 (to deal with the long wait times we
had in SF and CHI)A taste of the DBC experienceA stronger
foundation in:Programming conceptsSyntaxResearchDBC cultureChances
to pair and learn with one anotherWe also wanted to better assess
students. Some found the old assessment a flawed indicator of
student preparedness
Phase 0 prerequisitesStudents are expected to come into Phase 0
with basic knowledge of:Their learning and thinking styles (VARK
and Gregorc)How to set up their computerThe command line (pwd,
mkdir, cd, ls, touch, cp, mv, rm, etc.)Ruby (Learn to Program and
Codecademy)Typing (be able to type at least 40wpm)We designed the
prep competencies with the assumption that students would have one
week to go through the curriculum before starting phase 0. This has
been a problem for recent Chicago and NYC cohortsStudents in SF
continue to request additional workSee the competencies
Wilfred Wing Fat Lau and Allan Hoi Kau Yuen, Gender differences
in learning styles: Nurturing a gender and style sensitive computer
science classroom, in Australasian Journal of Educational
Technology 26 no.7 (2010): 1090-1103.
Which noted females had a higher preference for Concrete
Sequential and Abstract Random compared with males, who had a
higher preference for Concrete Random.
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Curriculum overviewUnit expectationsStudents need to pair with
their peers at least 4 times in Unit 1 and 6 times in Unit 2 and
submit feedback for their pairAttend required Guided Pairing
Sessions and submit feedback for their pairRate at least 20 pieces
of feedbackWeeklyStudents have between 5 - 8 technical coding
challenges2 blog assignments per week (one technical and one
cultural)
Also see the Phase 0 Student Handbook
Curriculum outlineThe 12 week Phase 0 curriculum was a good
start, but lacked in three categories we addressed in the 9 week
program:CultureWeekly cultural blog assignments:Kitchen vs.
restaurant, fears about DBC, thinking/learning styles, issues in
tech, feedback, stereotype threat, conflictCommunityCohorts for all
locations are in the same community, which helps students
communicate, get answers to their questions, and answer others
questionsTechnical blog assignments relating to a topic of the week
students are asked to share with their cohortComprehensionStudents
required to reflect on their learning for each challenge more
explicitly Technical blogs reinforce concepts theyve learned or
researched during the week
Curriculum OutlineUnit 1Week 1: HTML/CSSWeb basics: git, GitHub,
open source, licenses (very very basic)Basic HTML (doctype, head,
title, body, headings, paragraphs, lists, links)Basic CSS (classes,
Ids, basic positioning, and box model)Week 2: More
HTML/CSSWireframing, Chrome Devtools, the DOMResponsive DesignMore
CSS (fonts, pseudo elements, HTML5 elements)Week 3: JavaScriptgit
(from the command line)Create, add properties to, delete properties
from, and access values from JavaScript Object literalsBasic
functionsIntro to testing and TDD (with pre-written tests)
Curriculum outlineUnit 2Week 4: Ruby AlgorithmsCoding Process:
Basic Testing, Pseudocode, Initial Solution, Refactoring, and
ReflectionFlow Control, Loops, and Built-in Ruby methodsUse
strings, integers, arrays and hashesDestructive vs. non-destructive
methodsWeek 5: Introduction to ClassesBasic ClassesIntroduction to
SCOPEWeek 6: Object-Oriented DesignAssert
StatementsCompositionSingle ResponsibilityNested ArraysUser
Stories
Curriculum outlineUnit 3Week 7: SQLAdhere to naming conventions
for tables and columnsCreate a graphical representation of a simple
databaseDatabase relationships (one to one, one to many, many to
many, one to one)Write simple SELECT statements using (SELECT,
FROM, WHERE, LIMIT, and ORDER BY)Week 8 and 9: ReviewThe curriculum
is divided into categoriesStudents select a set amount of
challenges each week in the following categories:HTML/CSS
(1/week)JavaScript (2/week)Ruby (2/week)SQL (1/week)
GuidesWe moved to using contracted DBC graduates, called guides
to lead Guided Pairing Sessions. Student Feedback: students wanted
more session times outside of normal business hoursRecent graduates
have a pretty good hold on what DBC is like and are in a good place
to talk to students who want to know more about the DBC
experienceIt helps our recent graduates brush up on the basics
while giving them the time to continue their learningIt is much
more difficult to cover all hours with full-time staff who will
need to take vacations, etc. As a result, weve been working on
improving the training for guides to create a more consistent
student experience.
AssessmentWe removed the formal test-style assessment and
instead assess students through the following:Guided Pairing
Sessions (GPS)Students attend 4 GPS in Phase 0 (in the curriculum)
Students work with a pair on a special challenge and have a guide
as wellGuides assess students in terms of technical and cultural
progress using the following scale-1 Student is very behind and
were worried about them catching up0 Student is behind, but will
likely be able to catch up1 Student is on track2 Student is far
ahead of the curriculumStudents receive ASK feedback from the guide
after each session. They do not receive their scores.
AssessmentCode ReviewsStudents have built-in solo challenges
each week. They are expected to work on these by themselves and to
fully understand the code they turn in. We provide 2 code reviews
on a solo challenge for each student.Unit 1, week 3: JavaScript
Solo ChallengeUnit 2, week 5: Ruby Solo ChallengeWe assess students
on the same scale (-1 to 2) for solo challengesEach challenge has
multiple parts (pseudocode, initial solution, refactored solution,
reflection) to help us gauge the students comprehension of the
concepts. They are not able to simply paste a solution in without
explaining their logic and progress. The summary document sent to
teachers at the end of phase 0 consists of an average of the 4 GPS
scores and 2 Code Reviews.
What we have done wellStudents have more chances to interact
with DBCWe offer 30 min tutoring sessions to help students who are
strugglingWe have 10 office hours per week where students can jump
in and ask a questionStudents are getting feedback more
consistently on their progressStudents are pairing more often
required to pair 4 times in unit 1, 6 times in units 2 and
3Students are interacting with one another and answering others
questionsStudents have more interaction with our culture and are
introduced to IKE, feedback, and other cultural topics we believe
in The amount of EE at DBC is not a surprise.
What we still suck atBeing flexibleAssessing consistently (and
more objectively)Mediating between the needs of the guides and
studentsHaving a diverse curriculum that has challenges with
different structures (creative, experimental, research-and-apply,
group, etc.)Communicating with the rest of DBCGetting other DBC
instructors involved Having more resources for students to engage
with us
The endQuestions? Comments?
