tips (based on SCIENCE) to be an effective teacher to a diverse group of students

1. pedagogy.js
how to teach JavaScript to a beginner
@marthakelly

2. About Me
Martha Girdler
Martha Schumann
@marthakelly
Software Engineer, Uber
We’re Hiring!! uber.com/careers

3. Why Teach/Mentor at all?
Selflessly
● Give back
● Diversity
Selfishly
● Mastery
● Networking

4. Why Teach JS?
● Client
● Server
● Unity (Game Dev)
● Mobile Web Dev
● JS -> Native App
● (so many more I’m forgetting)

5. Resources
● Improving Academic Performance
○ Impact of Psychological Factors on
Education (Educational Psychology)
● How Learning Works
○ Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart
Teaching

6. The Nature of Learning
● Motivation
○ The Nature of Intelligence
○ Stereotype Threat
● Mastery

7. Motivation
● The Single Largest Factor in a Student’s
Success
● View of Intelligence
● View of Failure

8. The Successful Student
● Eagerness
● Love of challenge
● Ability to persist in difficulty
● Children become what they think they are
● Beliefs can be changed!

9. Stereotype Threat
● Suppressing Minority Achievement
● Psychological
● Can’t escape Stereotypes

10. Combating Stereotype Threat
● High Expectations
● Create Trust
● New view of Failure
● New view of Intelligence

11. Intelligence is not Fixed
● Darwin
● Tolstoy
● William James
● Mozart
● Michael Jordan

12. Self Efficacy & Mastery
● I can do this!
● I can’t do this!
● Mastery experiences === Confidence

13. Mastery
stage 1: acquire component skills
stage 2: practice integrating skills
stage 3: know when to apply skills
stage 4: mastery

14. Mastery
stage 1: acquire component skills
● drill in basics
○ why
○ how JS works in the browser
○ how a webpage is rendered
○ how scripts are loaded

15. Mastery
stage 2: acquire component skills
● drill in basics
○ debugger
○ variables, strings, numbers
○ arrays (setting, getting)
○ objects (setting, getting)

16. Mastery
stage 2: practice integrating skills
● drill in basics
○ logic
○ SCOPING (tricksy)

17. Mastery
stage 2: practice integrating skills
● drill in basics
○ writing their first program
○ small, well defined tasks
○ KOANS
● jQuery

18. Achieving Mastery
● Appropriate level of challenge
● Build on previous learnings
● Healthy Failure
● Hard Work + Persistence

19. Teaching Strategy
● Elaborative Interrogation
○ ask why?
● Analogies
○ give many diverse analogies
○ contrasting analogies
○ make connections to their world

20. Declarative vs Procedural
● Declarative
○ “what”
○ facts
● Procedural
○ “how”
○ when to apply

21. Review of Success
● Strongly Motivated
● Confident
● Demonstrate Procedural Knowledge
● Can learn independently

22. thankyou.js
@marthakelly