From c9d54e7d358cb2b7b62243e40af2a28953a05ae1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alasdair Smith Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 20:54:11 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Minutes for 2023-10-12 --- docs/contributing/minutes.md | 123 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 123 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/contributing/minutes.md b/docs/contributing/minutes.md index bb1dcb5e71..c1994c204e 100644 --- a/docs/contributing/minutes.md +++ b/docs/contributing/minutes.md @@ -16,6 +16,129 @@ Attendees: --- +## 2023-10-12 + +Attendees: Ali, Mitch, Daniel + +### ❗Actions from last time + +- [ ] Everyone: keep coming up with project ideas +- [ ] Mitch: Continue with JS2 rewrite +- [ ] Everyone: Continue reviewing rewrite PRs +- [ ] Daniel: (Carry-over) Look through the MigraCode curriculum and understand strengths and gaps + +### 📝 Agenda points + +#### Curriculum update + +- WM5 + - At the moment there's a lag in the completion of coursework of JS1 + - 87% for week 1, ...sorry missed this...% for week 2, 1% for week 3 + - Gap in the knowledge of the volunteers + - Unsure how they can contribute + - This is from older & newer volunteers + - Don't see evidence of trainees using the time during the week +- Why Mitch thinks this is happening + - Curriculum content is challenging + - Lack of polish because it's new and we've not had time to tidy up + - Over-assumed skills in reading docs + - Prep resources + - Text with exercises + - Overwhelming for trainees + - No real sense of energy in the classroom + - No conversations, not breaking up into small groups + - Nobody leading this + - WM transitioned to flipped classroom by themselves + - No context given through this transition + - Volunteers struggling to have context + - Taking away the whiteboard has lead to volunteers not really knowing what to do + - Ali has seen similar themes in London too + - Cohort founders would understand the essence of flipped classroom, but this doesn't seem to be happening + - Gap in leadership - feel that volunteers are looking to step back a bit + - Daniel: observed new volunteers turning up without knowing what to do + - Don't know a specific person to talk to (e.g. a program manager) +- Daniel asks about class size, volunteers, etc + - 1 long standing volunteer, a bunch of new volunteers + - No official Program Manager for WM + - Have Matt semi-covering + - Had a projector screen, and everyone was sat looking at it + - Class size: 15 +- The good stuff + - Level of understanding of submitted PRs seems high + - Hopeful that better organisation will help boost this higher +- Potential solutions + - Mitch is organising a classroom orientation + - Hoping that if we communicate the concepts better, then this will galvanise the cohort + - Mandatory "training" of cohort founders + - Learning as a community happens at the beginning but isn't repeated + - We could look at putting this in every week + - Reinforcing the message of collaboration + - Might need work alongside PD on this + - Daniel: Tech Ed team might need to be physically present as much as possible to guide the community + - Mitch: WM could do a volunteer standup while trainees are doing the energiser + - Presentation of prep work could be worked on + - Polish + - Recording sessions + - Daniel: could we make the prep page a carousel? To make it less intimidating + +#### Who is the course for? + +- Profile of trainees who know no JS at the start of the course + - Possible that we might be cutting these trainees out? + - Talked to a WM trainee in this boat - who was finding it very challenging +- WM did less JS in the pre-work + - Unknown if covering more JS would have helped with this +- Daniel: it's about trajectory not raising the bar + - Mentioned the mastery model - instead of raising the bar to start the course, ideally we could put multiple bars to clear before moving to the next topic + - However we don't have a clear solution to the organisational challenges to this + +#### JS3 + +- Created a discussion for the JS3 threads: https://github.com/CodeYourFuture/curriculum/discussions/315 +- Daniel: the threads touch on mapping data to a render + - Q for Mitch: How far are we leaning into this concept in JS3? + - W1: Mapping static state to UI + - W2: Fetching state from server, then map to UI + - W3: ...sorry missed this... + - Q for Ali: could we steal a week of React to dig into the concept before introducing the React APIs? + - Historically only the highest skill trainees got the concepts of React based on the TV project - so it wasn't worth React discussing these concepts in context of React + - Would be open to discussing this + - We need to re-work React into 4 weeks anyway, so room for changes + - There is some tradeoffs to be made since we introduce the React API, but don't currently spend a lot of "class time" (because it also is pre-flipped classroom) on reinforcing/practicing React - so would like to add some of this if possible + - Daniel: dream is that the concepts of React (deriving UI from data, state) before they meet the API of React + - How could this be structured? + - Daniel: early in React module is focused on refactoring TV project into React-esque API (i.e. some `render` functions) + - Conclusion was that we probably can't fit it all into JS3, so can have the discussion about tradeoffs when we look at updating React +- Mitch: moving to submarine mode, to finish up JS3 + - Want to finish up the rewrite + - Want to switch to supporting WM + +#### Town Hall + +- How did it go? Anything changed how it went? + - Mitch: thought it was really clear, did a good job of communicating the urgency + - Lots of good follow-up + - Ali: general worry about tendency to focus on tenders, possibly over portfolio projects + - It's easy to focus on tenders because of the payment, but I think it would be worth emphasising that the primary goal is not the money, it's to put something that looks great on portfolios + +#### Getting JS2 over the line + +- Portfolio day plan has been released + - Mitch: want to get this merged asap, as want to reuse parts of this in JS2. Tickets: https://github.com/CodeYourFuture/curriculum/issues/321 & https://github.com/CodeYourFuture/curriculum/issues/319 + +### ❗Actions + +- [ ] Mitch & Daniel to coordinate on visiting WM in person to support +- [ ] Mitch: record the prep content for WM (deconstructing a JS1 section) +- [ ] Everyone: pick up the JS2 tickets linked above (high priority) +- [ ] Ali: read the JS3 threads discussion +- [ ] (Carry-over) Everyone: keep coming up with project ideas +- [ ] (Carry-over) Mitch: Continue with JS2 rewrite +- [ ] (Carry-over) Everyone: Continue reviewing rewrite PRs +- [ ] Daniel: (Carry-over) Look through the MigraCode curriculum and understand strengths and gaps + +--- + ## 2023-09-14 Attendees: Sally, Mitch, Daniel, Ali