Pedagogical question: open-endedness?
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I'm wrestling with one question right now: I really, really want to include one notebook which is very, very unstructured and open-ended. (This would probably be the last nb.) This simulates the scenario that most of us will be in when faced with a novel modelling question.
Yet, given that the class probably only will have had 2 hours with PyMC3, I'm also worried that this would be a bit "too much" for them.
Thus, I have the following hypothesis:
- Assume every notebook has an "instructor" version and a "student" version.
- Then, an unstructured notebook can be feasible IFF I make it clear to the students that "copying code (from the instructor version) and then mulling over it is a perfectly reasonable way to learn".
- Those who are competent won't have to refer to the instructor version.
- Those who are feeling less confident have the instructor version to fall back on, and can still learn.
Do you think this is a reasonable hypothesis? Would it be worthwhile to try this out during the tutorial?
@ericmjl I'm always up for such experiments. My concern is that there won't be enough time.
E.g. after set-up etc..., each of us will have around 110 minutes. If you give them 20 minutes to play around with the open-ended NB, they will have had only 90 minutes w/ PyMC3.
If you give them 30 minutes, etc...
The question is: what would this be replacing? I.e. what material will you not cover in order to do this? Then we can check out the Bayes' factor.
Closing this issue; as I run through the tutorial overarching narrative, I'm seeing that this might not be as much of an issue.