Hi all, This has been a really interesting thread to lurk on, and I've enjoyed hearing everyone's perspectives!
Tyson's comments about the list of commands overloading short-term memory and the need for bigger-picture perspective really resonated with me. I think it is *really* important to understand your workshop audience; e.g. learners who are specializing in computational research and are starting out will come in with some experience with command line and REPL interfaces, and also be able to reinforce learning in daily practice later. That is a very different audience than learners who are researchers in a non-computational field and looking for a pathway into better data practices, reproducibility, basic stats and data viz. Onto the Git lesson, specifically, I think even a bigger-picture perspective is needed for *how git fits into a project workflow*. I struggle with capturing this effectively this in my own teaching of git in a shorter-form workshop for a general audience, but I think Alice Bartlett's slides on "Git for humans" - https://speakerdeck.com/alicebartlett/git-for-humans - do a good job of emphasizing that commits track the versions of a *whole project*. (The simple text file example is good to demonstrate mechanisms, but it can also leave one wondering why Git is preferred over a regular back-up / cloud storage system.) Back to understanding your audience, I think we should be more explicit in regularly encouraging instructors to trim or add content as befits the needs of their learners. I feel learners for the git lesson can often be better served if it covers the basic concepts really well, introduces GitHub Desktop as an interface, and stops there, rather than trying to cover all the episodes for a group that just started with bash that day or the day before. Best, -- Hao Ye Reproducibility Librarian University of Florida (he/him/his) On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 4:51 PM Inigo Aldazabal Mensa <inigo_aldaza...@ehu.eus> wrote: > Ups, here go the sketches. > > Iñigo > > On Tue, 23 Mar 2021 21:15:15 +0100 > Inigo Aldazabal Mensa <inigo_aldaza...@ehu.eus> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I still have to summarize my git online experience, which went smooth > > enough, even if I will do important changes in the last part based in > > this experience. I'll comment all this, but I'll do it in another > > post, and not today. BTW, thanks all for the tips and advice, they all > > where really useful. > > > > Now... > > > > On Tue, 23 Mar 2021 11:38:09 -0400 > > Tyson Whitehead <twhiteh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > My personal thought, from watching people struggle in the SC git > > > lessons years ago, is that people are just memorizing commands > > > instead of learning the big picture that ties it all together. > > > > > > Without the bigger picture, they don't know how to deal with the > > > situation that inevitably arises that they haven't been explicitly > > > taught about. They also go glassy eyed about half-way through when > > > the number of new commands exceeds their short-term memory limit. > > > > Regarding this "memory limit", I write the commands in the > > black/whiteboard in a column as I introduce them, and also give > > learners a printed cheat sheet to have at hand. > > > > > This xkcd comic summarizes it pretty succinctly > > > > > > https://xkcd.com/1597/ > > > > > > Now I see more diagrams have been added to the official SC git > > > lesson, so I expect things have improved from my past experience > > > with students struggling, but I still think there is room for > > > improvement. In particular, I would argue that the diagrams > > > shouldn't be bonus addons to the material, but the central core of > > > it. This is, the lesson needs to be inverted so that the diagrams > > > become the core of the presentation and the commands the periphery. > > > > > > To this end, whenever I teach it, I always do it in terms of > > > building up a single large-picture diagram that I keep in front of > > > them at all times. > > > > Totally agree with the diagrams being central to explain the concepts, > > and also that they should be "hand" drawn and build up as the > > lesson goes. Exactly as you do in your videos below. > > > > >The idea being that > > > > > > - the focus and motivation is the operations as depicted in the > > > diagram, giving the big picture of how it all fits together and > > > natural motivating the next set of operations > > > > Yes! > > > > > - they aren't being distracted by, and having their memory > > > overloaded by, trying to memorize all the commands and which does > > > what as this is always in front of them annotated on the diagram > > > > As mentioned, for me the commands go up in a side column as they come, > > always visible (in the in person workshop, that is). I do the same for > > the bash lesson (there also for . .. ~ * ? etc) . > > > > Anyway, I 100% agree whit what you say, and since years I've been > > building up a "big picture" diagram as I move, and referring to it all > > the time. The diagrams always come up in the positive feedback for the > > lesson as being very helpful and clarifying. > > > > For the online lesson I had to split the general sketch in two, and I > > also created two new ones specifically dedicated to explain the > > collaboration and fork parts. In fact the last one I only had time to > > use it for explanation as time run up. These last two was the first > > time I did them, and it was a positive side effect of the online > > format, as I usually only have one physical white/blackboard "page" > > which I want to keep and update, with limited space, and here I had > > as many "pages" as I wanted :-) The negative side effect was that it > > was not persistent (I only shared the terminal, not enough space for > > everything as in your videos with the video conference system, chat, > > etherpad...), and that they couldn't have the list of commands in view > > all the time (if fact I didn't wrote it and referred to the cheat > > sheet). I have to still think about this, perhaps using Google > > Jamboards or something similar? > > > > > I've attached my final big-picture diagram in hopes that it will > > > inspire some interest. > > > > Your diagram is more complete that the ones I do, and I'm surely going > > to incorporate some concepts from it, thanks for sharing. Find > > attached the ones I finally came up with in this last online workshop. > > > > > The following two videos demonstrate how this > > > is built up well writing a basic python program (the first is > > > entirely about local operations and the second about remote > > > operations with gitlab/github). The videos were for a > > > non-interactive webinar, so they are missing the live exercises > > > porition > > > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFv-GDTkjE > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9iG5u36XIY > > > > So yes, I'm all in for this diagram-driven git lesson. > > > > Bests, > > > > Iñigo > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------ > > > This list is for the purpose of general discussion about The > > > Carpentries including community activities, upcoming events, and > > > announcements. Some other lists you may also be interested in > > > include discuss-hpc, discuss-r, and our local groups. Visit > > > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/ to learn more. 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All activity > > on this and other Carpentries spaces should abide by The Carpentries > > Code of Conduct found here: > > https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html > > > > The Carpentries: discuss > > Permalink: > > > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T2146428157a4d784-M08ae7fb0d0a6b7b9f85fc36d > > Delivery options: > > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription > > ------------------------------------------ > This list is for the purpose of general discussion about The Carpentries > including community activities, upcoming events, and announcements. Some > other lists you may also be interested in include discuss-hpc, discuss-r, > and our local groups. Visit https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/ to > learn more. All activity on this and other Carpentries spaces should abide > by The Carpentries Code of Conduct found here: > https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html > > The Carpentries: discuss > Permalink: > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T2146428157a4d784-M559000ee9e274568f5c91a86 > Delivery options: > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription > ------------------------------------------ This list is for the purpose of general discussion about The Carpentries including community activities, upcoming events, and announcements. Some other lists you may also be interested in include discuss-hpc, discuss-r, and our local groups. Visit https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/ to learn more. 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