"Learn To" Tasks

Many students begin working on projects with a test mindset, e.g: "I don't know Swift, so I need to learn all of Swift before I can start on this iOS app." (It hopefully goes without saying that no real programmer knows all of Swift.)

This leads to students spending weeks doing what feels safe and familiar: studying documentation and trying out tutorials, without making real progress on their app.

When students need to learn something in order to progress, we encourage you to make sure you clearly outline the deliverables for your students. For example --

Bad: "Learn to use Node and Express."

Good: "Build a web server that prints the current time using Node and Express."

Experts vs Students

Most industry programmers are constantly learning, but for some students, the structure of schools leads them to believe that once they get their degree, they will "know" programming.

To help students learn to learn, we encourage you to use Socratic Questioning when dealing with student questions:

• Practice rubber-duck debugging. Have students explain what the problem, how their code works, etc.
• Ask leading questions. For example, "What have you tried searching for? Do you have any ideas for how we can solve this problem?"
• Give next steps (not answers). If students need more guidance, instead of giving a direct answer, help by narrowing down a problem or pointing them at a resource.