In this era of rapid technological change, getting our engineers up-to-speed with new skills is a core tenet of Twitter University's mission. Equally important is the need to keep this ramp up as short but as effective as possible: Our engineers are busy building the future of Twitter every single day and need these skills right away. This talk will focus on how Twitter University designs its technical courses to meet these goals.
(find the talk at http://ivantur.es/hup9)
2. 2
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Warm-up. Two pieces of feedback. How much value did you provide your
students with?
“The class was basically
a readout of the slides
with little or no extra
explanation. I could
have done it on my
own.”
“The instructor’s
explanations were easy
to understand. Overall
really good. Thanks!”
3. 3
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
My background:
Computer Scientist; High
Performance Computing,
large scale graph-based
algorithms
Data Scientist,
Machine Learning Instructor
Instructor; leveling up our
engineering talent
Guest Lecturer
4. Let’s look at some
feedback from students
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
4
5. 5
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Two pieces of feedback. How much value did you provide your students
with? (cont.)
“The class was basically
a readout of the slides
with little or no extra
explanation. I could
have done it on my
own.”
“The instructor’s
explanations were easy
to understand. Overall
really good. Thanks!”
6. 6
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
There’s not a single good thing said on the first feedback but the second
one is not that much better: If your students learned too easily from a
class, did they learned anything at all?
“The class was basically
a readout of the slides
with little or no extra
explanation. I could
have done it on my
own.”
“The instructor’s
explanations were easy
to understand. Overall
really good. Thanks!”
7. 7
So let’s make things harder. Here are concepts, frameworks, and tools
that we cover in our “Building and Deploying Services” class at Twitter:
Microservice Architecture Finagle Twitter Front End Pants Service Scaffolding
Technology Stack Distributed Resource Manager Finatra Apache Mesos Network Server
Packer Apache Thrift Deploying Services Beaker Application Logic Services
Logic Services Job Scheduler JVM Storage Services Targets
Technology Stack Redeploying Services Source Runtime REST Frameworks
Aurora TwitterServer Scala BUILD filesRPC Framework
and more…
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
8. 8
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Imagine receiving this feedback from your students. How much value did
you provide them with?
“Lots of valuable
content but two hours
was insufficient to cover
it all. An abbreviated
content would be more
suitable.”
9. 9
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
This class provided some value to the students. But, as instructors, we
tend to cram too much in our classes. Then our students become
frustrated.
“Lots of valuable
content but two hours
was insufficient to cover
it all. An abbreviated
content would be more
suitable.”
10. 10
Then classes become just stuff that nobody will remember. We still fail
our students.
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
GigaGiffy
@GigaGiffy
nobody remembers anything
from it and it makes no
impact. it's just stuff
5 Oct 20191 1
Above the Law
@atlblog
#5 In-House: What To Do In A
World Where Nobody
Remembers Anything
22 Oct 20171 5
11. So, how do we go about
really teaching everything
they need to learn then?
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
11
12. 12
#1. Let’s have our students acknowledge that learning is hard...
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
I see #effort as the path to
#mastery! Sometimes though
I have to remind myself
about it :)
Samppa Lahtinen
@SamppaSOS
28 Sep 20164
brynmrk
@brynmrk
"The brain is like a muscle.
When it is in use we feel very
good. Understanding is
joyous." —Carl Sagan
2 Oct 20191
Marcelo Miwa
@MarceloMiwa
"No pain, no gain" ; "Feel the
burn" (Jane Fonda)
2 Jan 2019
13. 13
Yep. Even for us.
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Yep, #learning is #hard.
Remembering my "no pain no
gain"/"feel the burn" moments
with Gym Tonic's Véronique and
Davina.
Ivan Corneillet
@ivantures
16 Oct 2019
14. 14
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Growth
Mindset leads
to a desire to
learn and
therefore a
tendency to...
… embrace
challenges
… persist in
the face of
setbacks
… see effort
as a path to
mastery… learn from
criticism
… find lessons
and inspiration
in the success
of others
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol S. Dweck
15. 15
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
#2. The “Why” before the “How”
Why or the power of
Storytelling
Everyone loves story. So
tell them one.
A story allows your
students to return to your
content, post story, with a
new perspective
Why, why, why or the
art of Conversation
Invite your students to ask
questions
Lectures are one-ways.
Conversations demand
talking and listening in
equal degrees
(This is one way to
practice retrieval
learning, i.e., pull
information out of
your student’s
heads.)
16. 16
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
The benefits of starting with “Why”, telling your students stories, and
engaging them through conversations:
For you, the instructor
Forces you to prioritize
what is important
“Less is more”
For your students
Help them to learn
“broadly”
“See the forest for the trees”
17. 17
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Some more feedback. Better?
“The material was
designed to extend past
the class. This
interactive class
highlighted the core
concepts without
getting bogged down by
technical details.”
18. 18
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Some more feedback. Better? Yep.
“The material was
designed to extend past
the class. This
interactive class
highlighted the core
concepts without
getting bogged down by
technical details.”
:hopeful:
19. 19
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
#3. The “How” through “Pacing” and “Interleaving”
Pacing
Boost learning by
spreading it up
multiple times and
overtime
Interleaving
Boost learning by
interleaving
similar concepts
so students can think on
what’s common and
what’s different
21. 21
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action
Twitter
Futures
Twitter Futures is a
fundamental construct
that Tweeps must
master
22. 22
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Twitter
Futures
We first motive its need
to new Tweeps so as to
build highly scalable
systems.
23. 23
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Thriftservices
atTw
itter
Twitter
Futures
Then when building an
real microservice, we go
over some core
constructs of Futures.
24. 24
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Thriftservices
atTw
itter
O
n
the
job
Twitter
Futures
Between classes,
Tweeps start honing
their Twitter Futures
skills on the job.
25. 25
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Thriftservices
atTw
itter
ScalaEssentials
Twitter
Futures
We introduce related
concepts, e.g., nomads
“en passant”.
O
n
the
job
26. 26
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Thriftservices
atTw
itter
ScalaEssentials
Tw
itterFutures
Twitter
Futures
At some point, our
students are ready to do
a deep dive. E.g., what
are some pitfalls one
needs to be aware of?
O
n
the
job
27. 27
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Learning Twitter Futures in Action (cont.)
Building and deploying
Twitter services
Thriftservices
atTw
itter
ScalaEssentials
Tw
itterFutures
Scala Collections
M
onads,
functions,and
friends
in
Scala
Twitter
Futures
Tweeps keep practicing
and learning more on the
job.
Once they are
comfortable with
Futures, we use it as a
building block for higher-
level concepts, e.g.,
nomads.
O
n
the
job
...
Rinse and repeat.
28. Course Design for Accelerated Learning
28
This is
Accelerated
Learning
29. 29
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
Let’s close with a few takeaways:
#1. Learning is hard, so
mindset matters.
You know it but how
about your students?
Educate them on the
growth mindset. (People
forget. You might need to
do it once than once.)
Manage their
expectations.
#2. Start your class with
the why using storytelling.
It is a powerful technique
to engage with your
students, enabling them
to learn broadly first.
Inquire their mind:
converse, don’t lecture.
Your students should
speak as much as you
do.
#3. Then follow up on the
how with pacing and
interleaving.
Don’t cram and don’t
specialize too much.
They’ll forget.
Intead, spread it out and
mix it up to boost long-
term learning.
30. 30
Course Design for Accelerated Learning
A few references I keep going back to:
Mindset: The New
Psychology of Success
by Carol Dweck (2007)
The Astonishing Power of
Storytelling: Leading,
Teaching, and Transforming
in a New Way by Robert
Garmston (2018)
Powerful Teaching: Unleash
the Science of Learning
by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice
Bain (2019)