I agree with this statement. Although I am nowhere near a good programmer yet, I have definitely gained a greater understanding of the elements used in code and how to actually write it myself.
I am! Even though coding is very stressful and does not come naturally to me personally, I find myself super excited for the times when I get the code to work on my own, or when I figure out how to successfully implement a given task. I look forward to the challenge because I know I’ll be super proud of myself for stepping outside of my comfort zone and completing it.
Yes… and no. I can complete the WODs without looking at the answers in the screencast, but sometimes I need to listen to the screencast to fully understand what the question is asking, or what the task is. I personally learn better when I hear explanations and receive oral instruction, so if I don’t understand what is being asked of me when reading the WOD’s task, I will listen to the screencast so that I can hear the professor give a little explanation of the question first before diving into the work, at which point I pause the screencast and do the WOD on my own and keep re-trying until it works.
The labs have helped me to learn because I can hear explanations for why we are doing which things in our code, and ask questions throughout the lessons. However, sometimes I feel lost when we are tasked with completing the labs in our free time because simply reading the instructions don’t make as much sense as they seem to when we go over them in class… but once I figure out what is being asked of me, I can complete the labs just fine on my own.
I am definitely excited to move onto the next stage of programming! As for if I am ready, I am a bit timid and nervous about it, but I honestly think that the best way to learn something is to do it! So, I am prepared to be challenged… That being said, I do not think I will have an easy time figuring it out, but I am curious as to what new skills I can learn!
I would appreciate it if there were an audio file attached with the labs or the WODs that have helpful hints or oral explanations of the harder questions so that I could listen to that and figure out the code on my own rather than starting the screencast. I also think it might be beneficial to receive a “vocab sheet” of the most-common coding commands and their uses so that we could study and refer to it throughout the semester. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with all of the possible commands available for use that my brain wants to shut down, so a beginner’s command sheet might be helpful to hand out at the beginning of the semester. Also, writing comments on the code as we work on labs together in class would be helpful for when students are looking back on labs as references, and can better understand/remember why we used certain commands and what they helped us accomplish.
Yes! I think it is great to be able to use class time to go over labs together–that has helped me exponentially as I mentally and physically reference lab work when I attempt my own WODs or assignments. Also, being able to use office hours has helped me a TON (even if it is embarrassing to not know the answers in front of the professor). I feel like the time spent going over what the code means has helped me to fully grasp coding as a whole.