Feedback on the instructor training course

May 5, 2015 • Michael Sarahan

This was an excellent course, and very enjoyable. I liked the format of meetings every two weeks with homework in between. It gave me time to digest things. I have a young daughter, and I have really enjoyed learning so much about teaching for the sake of helping her learn. Even if I never teach with SWC, this has been very worthwhile.

I did not like how haphazard participation in group activities was. The review part of activities, such as commenting on other people’s posts, seemed like they were frequently ignored. I know that this is simply par for the course for a volunteer course like this and that people get out what they put in, but it was frustrating. At the same time, I believe it would be too much work and micromanagement to make this otherwise.

Though I did not struggle with git or markdown, having had some previous experience, I do think a mini how-to tutorial would be helpful for people. I did not feel comfortable pointing out good GitHub etiquette and such - it really wasn’t the place to be nitpicking, but SWC and this course are great, warm places to learn those lessons. I wonder if Greg might enlist some help for future courses in merging participant PRs - people who can volunteer themselves to both make suggestions and guide people in making corrections.