Mentor Notes
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Requirements
Schedule
Here's a rough schedule, which you can adapt to suit your cohort. You should also schedule at least one short break in the afternoon for prayers. Parcel out the sessions between volunteers in a planning call beforehand. Once you've planned it, make sure you share the schedule with all trainees and volunteers at least 24 hours beforehand, so they can make any necessary travel, childcare, religious, and other logistical arrangements.
Morning
| 10:00 AM | 10:30 AM | 11:00 AM | 11:30 AM | 1200:00 AM | 12:30 AM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blockers! | Blockers! | MVP | MVP | Lunch | Lunch |
Afternoon
| 13:00 | 13:30 | 14:00 | 14:30 | 15:00 | 15:30 | 16:00 | 16:30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capgemini / Personal Development | Capgemini / Personal Developement | Iterating | CYF Blocks | Iterating | Ship It | Ship It | Retro |
Blockers!
Solving Problems Workshop
You can do this workshop in person, online, or a mix of both. You can run even run this workshop completely offline using this kit: Rush Hour.
Start on Level 6 or above and get people to load the page before you go into breakout rooms TAs can only be passengers. No driving or navigating. TAs may ask questions but not answer them. TAs will make sure the driver and navigators are following their roles correctly.
TA: Check in questions
Model ways of thinking about the game strategically instead of just trying stuff randomly:
- Which car is the blocker? Everyone guess!
- What shall we do first?
- What do you notice about the cars? Are they different sizes?
- What do you notice about the board? What does this mean for our choices?
- Is it frustrating being the driver?
- Are we there yet? Shall we play another round?
- What one thing shall we say we noticed about this game, back in the main room?
TA: Evolve the game
Evolve the game each time you play to guide the players to insights:
- Round 2: You must discuss for 1 minute before you make any moves
- Round 3: A single navigator can make no more than three moves in one go
- Round 4: Try to solve the puzzle in as few moves as you can
Leader example reflection:
This game interests me because to be successful you have to identify the blockers, which is something we all need to get better at. In this game, the blocker is often not the immediately obvious car ‘in the way’. To find it you might have to trace backwards around the board, thinking: to move this one I need to move that one, to move that one, I need to move this next one… And then you need to explain that to your team!
It’s a good reflection on blockers and planning.
More resources
- Backup alternative online game: https://www.crazygames.com/game/rush-hour-online
- Physical version of this game: https://www.thinkfun.com/products/rush-hour/
Iteratively solving coding problems
The CYF Blocks syllabus gradually introduces the idea of solving problems "in reverse", or "inside out", making sure to start with something simple that can be visually verified and gradually adding complexity, continuing to verify at each step. The following exercises are good for demoing this (bear in mind which concepts students have/have not yet seen when picking one of these):
Pairing
Two volunteers will spend 10 minutes demonstrating pair programming, so please agree a CYF Blocks exercise (one of the exercises in https://blocks.codeyourfuture.io/#exercise_button_consolidation would be a good start) to demo with and both have the page ready. Say not much more than:
"We are going to pair programme. I will drive, which means I will type the code (modify the blocks), and NAME will navigate, which means they will tell me what to do."
Nominate a trainee to set a timer for five minutes. Driver, share your screen. Navigator, talk clearly and simply through one improvement. Go much more slowly than feels reasonable. Only make one change. Then switch and make one more change.
When live coding with CYF Blocks, make sure to notice "out loud" extra features of the interface:
- oh look, I can copy and paste blocks
- Hmm, what happens when I click "share"
When you ask trainees to pair later on, remember that this is very likely to be the first time they have ever paired on a programming problem. Here are some tips on running a good pairing session:
- Assign a volunteer to call out to switch navigator and driver roles every 10 minutes loosely
- Make sure the students actually switch!
- Monitor closely to check that one side isn't dominating
- Don't run the session too long - it is stressful for some
- Switch partners at least once
Ship It
Share your screen and do a live run through this workflow (5 minutes) as a group beforehand. Don't take questions after your demo: get the trainees to try first. Float around answering questions and help unblock people as they ship their work.
If the Codepen files are a blocker for trainees, there's a clean boilerplate Ship It available, but keep the focus on iteration and refactoring.
Make sure the feature they build, or change they make, is very small.
Coursework review
Many of the words we use will either be completely new to trainees or used in a new way. Make space in each day to define terms, and model ways to find out terms (look stuff up together)
Blockers/Coursework Review
We make space in every session at CYF for a coursework review, where trainees identify their blockers and ask for help getting unstuck.
It's important for trainees to think about questions that they had during the week. To avoid getting distracted with answering a question for too long, run a short session where you write down all the questions on a whiteboard. You can do this on a Jam board or on a white board.
Make sure trainees just write one short thing on each sticky note.
You can then prioritise answering the questions on your own time, or split into groups to answer several questions at once.
It is also useful to get a volunteer write up the questions in a more permanent place (e.g. as a Gist) and share on Slack.
Start coursework in class
It is a good idea to spend some time in the class working through the interfaces and the first few challenges.
Assigning Coursework
At the end of the day, check in with trainees on their goals for the week. Make sure you have published the coursework for this week through Google Classroom. You can schedule this to happen automatically.
For this week, you also need to assign Study Group teams. Use the random list team generator and post the list in Google Classroom.