On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 10:22:59AM -0400, Matthew Jadud wrote: > 2. Script the entire thing. Have it solved in advance. It is OK if > there is a "gotcha," but you had best discover it in advance so that > you can help the participants.
I was a little surprised reading this, since it is honestly not a realistic aspect of actual open source contribution. (Sadly true.) That is, we *try* to give new contributors that level of completeable project and success, but almost always there is an unexpected something. In resolving that something, bonding and learning occur. But so does potential failure, which is hard to mitigate in 5 short days. What you describe sounds like it can simulate productively lost, but not actually _be_ productively lost. Is that how it works? Did it work well in Raleigh the first time? That is, did the attendees feel productively lost, but the instructor assurance got them through? Or did you feel all along that there wasn't really any being lost? Instructors from that first one -- is Matt accurate about how well scripted things were? I know that doesn't mean words scripted, but that you were 100% positive about the process so there was no chance of feeling a lack of success on the part of the attendees? In Singapore, it lost half of the class, who might not have engaged regardless, but it seemed to really light up the rest of the class. There was a lot more 'lost' than 'scripted' in that one. Of course, I thought it went great. :) As an instructor-to-be, this is the part that makes me nervous. I'm perfectly confident that I can take a group of educators through a productively lost learning experience, but I'm not as confident that I can script it so there is no potential for failure (due to the high risk of failure), yet have it retain the same feel of being lost. - Karsten -- name: Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener team: Red Hat Community Architecture uri: http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki gpg: AD0E0C41
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