berziiii
commented
8 years ago Thanks for sharing, Lauren. Part of the "you-do" is for you to learn how to create the working code on your own. For the record, we don't expect this to happen immediately so don't worry about it right now. Just keep retaining and learning during the follow along and we do portions and reference the code we use and your notes to aid in the you do section. One day at a time :)
Overall Reflections:
I'm finding that so far--today, Friday, and during the pre-coursework--I've been having a similar experience. Maybe others can relate. I feel like I understand things very well as they are being explained (or as I'm reading course materials), but then when it comes time for the "your turn!" part, I find my mind blank, not sure where to begin. I think doing things together (the "we work" session--but, very importantly, only after following the "I [instructor's name] work" session) helps me gain that muscle memory, so that the next time, when I have to do something on my own, I remember where to begin. Sometimes just calling an instructor over today to get me started with the first prompt enabled me to quickly recall the rest of the steps...it's just that first "where do I begin?" thing that needs to be drilled in to my brain. And that just requires tons more practice, I think, like learning anything. You have to do it over and over, so repetition in class is helpful. I also think I have a bit of back-to-school nerves going. It's been awhile since I've been in class full-time, and yes, at times this course is definitely like trying to get a sip of water from a fire hydrant!
How do you learn best?
I think, as I stated above, I learn by the "we-do" method, with plenty of repetition. I love watching the lessons, but until we walk through it together, I feel like I haven't retained it well enough to do it on my own. But having just a few one-on-one moments when I needed help from in instructor today was also invaluable--they were able to quickly answer a bunch of questions that had been rattling around in my head.
Also: like many people, I think I'm a visual learner. Many things we are exploring are very conceptual and theoretical. The diagram about GitHub that Jeff photographed at the end of the lesson was AWESOME. I had already been starting to picture something like that in my head ("OK, so there are four repositories, 2 local, and 2 on github, and here's how they're connected..."), and that diagram confirmed for me that I understood the concept, which felt great. But it would be awesome to have more visuals embedded in the lessons, and maybe introduced earlier on IN the lesson--as a learning tool, not just a way to summarize things.
Which resources from this document helped you the most?
I loved the Atlassian tutorials. They were very well written, which I really appreciate. As I writer (in my past life :) ), the well-written lessons make a big difference, I think. Sometimes I've found sloppy tutorials online, where people will refer to the same thing using a variety of vocabulary words, which I feel is REALLY bad when you are trying to teach people the very precise meaning of the vocab we use in web development. For example, early on, I wondered what the difference was between a tag and an element, practically speaking (like when should I say "tag" and when should I say "element" when discussing my work?), because a text was using those words interchangeably. And while I've figured that one out, this issue come up from time-to-time when I read materials. So for me, bottom-line is precision and specificity in course materials. I really like to know exactly how I should be using all of these new vocab words we're learning.
How comfortable are you with the workflow (series of steps and git commands) we use to share work and responses?
I must admit, git and github are not my favorite thing so far. But I realize how important they are. I would say I am semi-comfortable. Today helped a lot, but I need some more reading and practice on my own time if we are not going over this stuff in class anymore. I could definitely use some more time to firm up these concepts. But perhaps that will just come from having to start using them more and more. I'm starting to see why it's difficult to teach web development in a linear fashion; it's a patchwork of skills, and you have to jump around from one to the other to learn, but this can leave one feeling like they don't "fully" understand one particular concept before moving on to the next one.
Overall takeaway: After Day 1, this is exciting but a little scary! I am going to take Chris's advice and trust that "everything will be ok!" Thanks to all the instructors for trying to make us feel so comfortable so far.