Thread by @HeyChelseaTroy

My Intermediate Python Programming class is fully remote, in a program that has largely gone back in-person.

On teaching in-person vs remotely: a lot of the 'relative effectiveness' arguments I hear are speculative.

So I want to share some data with you from my class.

1/

FIRST: Where am I getting this data? I survey my students.

I survey my students 19 times per quarter.

Most pedagogy breakthroughs I've had found their seed in these survey responses.

Tonight, my students completed their 16th survey of the quarter. Here's what they said.

2/

There's this idea that live lecture universally works better than pre-recorded lectures, which my students watch outside of class.

I have subjective reasons why I disagree, but let's skip those and consider what students said.

Look at this. The margin here is not close.

3/

Now, this is small-n data (n=48). I don't IGNORE those 16 students who responded that they prefer live lecture. I dig into why they prefer it to debug leakages/oversights in my system.

But it's flatly not true that my students overwhelmingly would prefer live lecture.

4/

So my students watch their lectures in pre-recorded format outside of class. What do we do in class?

We do activities. Mostly, small group activities. Students are coached on how to collaborate in their small groups. I'm there to facilitate large group activities, too.

5/

"Group exercises? Students HATE those!"

Do they? Let's ask.

I didn't cherry-pick these responses. As you can see, not EVERYONE loves the format. The vast majority do like it.

Also notice the illuminative feedback largely isn't about the format; it's about the difficulty.

6/

Those students are right; my group exercises are f'ing hard. They're like that by design.

Why are they hard:

1. They have several steps; I want all groups to complete step, say, 3, but I include 4 & 5 to occupy the fast groups while everyone gets to 3. But...

7/

... these are CS students. The whole class is try-hards. No one wants to not get to 5. So that's a frustrating experience.

Reason 2: I'd rather they have an extremely challenging (which, yes, includes frustrating) experience in a venue where they're not being GRADED on it.

8/

For in-class activities, I grade on participation—not completion.

I'm already essentially forcing try-hards to fail at something. They're already at the minimum effective stress dose. Ratcheting that stress higher w a grade won't increase learning IMHO.

SO...

9/

...the CLASS has its frustrating bits, but the overall volume of time spent thinking "Am I going to fail this class" should be lower relative to the challenge.

I said I'd just talk data here but I knew I'd get this question so I figured I'd explain.

ANYWAY, anyway anyway

10/

This is about the best breakdown I've had on timing an in-class activity, by the way.

That blue wedge represents kibbitzing. That's a loss I want to minimize. In my experience, out of that yellow wedge, most complete the "minimum" but want to finish the enrichment steps.

11/

This one, for example, WAY worse.

/12

FWIW, my format would be much harder to execute in-person.

It would be hard to separate the groups enough in a room to avoid distracting cross-talk, and they'd have to either be in each other's personal space to work in groups, or share screen anyway.

/13

Takeaways? I guess, 3:

1. in-person class just WORKING better is not a universal experience.

2. Some adaptations to remoteness were actual pedagogical strides; we shouldn't leave them behind when we get back in the classroom.

3. SURVEY YOUR STUDENTS AND LISTEN TO THEM

14/14