Hi all, I just joined the TeachingOpenSource mailing list and the instructions encouraged an email introduction :)
My name is Ken and I teach software development at Green River College, a community college about 25 miles south of Seattle, WA, USA. A few years ago, I helped to launch an applied baccalaureate program at our college, focusing on software development / applied computer science. In over ten years of teaching, I have heard from folks that students who engage in open-source project work are in a stronger position in terms of gaining experience that is valued by industry and being about to differentiate themselves in the hiring process. However, the implied expectation is that students will engage in open-source projects on their own time, which is not realistic with the community college students who I serve. Many of the students who I work with have survival jobs that they work at outside of class and/or have commitments to support families (so there is no “extra time” to engage in projects) and as you probably can guess, many students who are new to tech are intimidated by the process of engaging with an open source project where they aren’t sure about if they are “good enough” to contribute or the process of how to get started. So I have been working to find a way to make open-source project work more accessible to my students. This past academic year, through the support of a foundation grant, I partnered with an organization called Mentors in Tech, where I was able to help each student capstone team (four students per team) connect with two technical project mentors (experienced software engineers working in industry) and one project coach (an experienced project manager in industry). While it is was important to give agency to student teams, the idea was to have student teams be supported by mentors to help them with the process of engaging in a new project, identifying a place where they can contribute, and helping to both boost confidence (that students are ready) and to manage scope/expectations while getting started (working on fixes and small features in an existing large codebase, rather than building entire products from scratch). In the past, I would have to be the mentor-advisor for all teams, but through this model, I have a team of facilitator-mentors who can be in a better position to coach students (since I know I have a power dynamic as the person who assigns grades) and through meeting/working with the mentors, I get a better sense as to where students are and where I can help provide supplemental instruction in the classroom to support the project work. So far, it has been really exciting for students and for me to see what they have been able to accomplish and contribute with the help of project mentors, but there’s still more to learn and do to help make this a sustainable effort over time. My vision is to be able to provide every student in my program with the opportunity to work on an open-source project as part of their capstone courses (rather than an “extra outside of class”), so every student in the program can have both the learning experience and the experience they can put on their resume and speak about in their interviews. At this point, I have been putting a lot of thought into “backwards design” and figuring out how to build up intermediate skills in working on open-source projects in earlier courses so that it is an even more accessible experience by the time students get to the capstone courses. I am excited to I found TeachingOpenSource and I am looking forward to meeting and learning from the community as I continue my teaching and learning journey! Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer, Ken Kendrick Hang Program Director, BAS Software Development Instructor, Data Analytics and Software Development Green River College
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