/study_group_guide

How to run a study group

Study Group Guide

Recorded Study Groups

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THi5-jDzt9AuaqhzGD_Yxf40KCYipaZWoTTm28dKCjI/edit

Tl;Dr

Engineer-led study groups are every Wednesday from 5-6pm. They are remote and conducted on Zoom.

  • Pick a Wednesday by visiting the student council google calendar and signing up for an available wednesday study group slot.
  • Pick a topic like a specific lab to review, topic you can provide AMA-style "office hours" on, small app you can build out live or small coding problem like a code kata to solve live.
  • Go to Learn.co and click the big green "create study group" button.
  • Fill out the date, time, title, and zoom link. Title your group: "Learn Engineer Led: The Title"
  • Make sure you are a TA in the v-000 batch! That is the only way the study group will be marked to students as "Flatiron Hosted". Add yourself to the batch via the batch show page or just ask Sophie to do it for you.
  • Record your study group using Zoom or Quicktime or whatever you prefer. Share the recording in the #student-council Slack channel when you're done and add to this doc
  • That's it!

What is a Study Group

Study groups are provided to online students via group Zoom calls. They are created and hosted by students or teachers and can be on any topic. They are opportunities for students and teachers to work together to solve specific problems from a lab, ask and answer questions on a topic or share knowledge on a curriculum or curriculum-adjacent topic.

Study groups are a GREAT way to...

  • Work directly with students and help them learn
  • Work with and learn from our expert teachers
  • Interact with Learn.co in all of its glory

IMPORTANT: How to Introduce Your Study Group

It's key to frame your study group correctly to the participating students. Your study group is NOT required content nor does it introduce info that students MUST understand in order succeed at Flatiron or as a developer. It IS a fun way for them to encounter Flatiron devs, learn interesting new things and see a more experienced dev in action as we solve problems and think through new concepts. We introduce our study groups to our students as BONUS and a great way to get to know and work with a Flatiron engineer. Start your study group by clarifying this thinking and make sure you leave time during the group or at the end for students to ask questions. And don't forget to have fun!

Picking a Topic

There are a few general categories for topics. We recommend picking a topic that isn't thoroughly covered in our curriculum. Something that your experience as an engineer has taught you. This kind of stuff is really valuable for students--stuff they can't learn from a README or lab.

Teacher's Choice

An introduction to/some info on a topic of your choosing. Want to talk about how to use Omniauth in Rails? How about JWT authentication? Or how you set up your amazing bash profile? Just keep the topics on a beginner level, prepare a few notes or some code you want to share/build out and run with it!

Ideas:

  • Life after Flatiron School: What it’s like to be a programmer

  • What does a JIRA ticket look like

  • How do I make Git commits

  • Local environment: How is it set up, what editor/extensions do we use

  • How to Google

  • Demystification of programming jargon, buzz words

  • How to write TDD code

  • Solving a code kata with TDD

  • What is refactoring?

  • GitHub as a collaboration tool: make a PR, someone reviews it, merge it in. rebase?

  • Title your study group "Learn Engineer Live Discussion: JWT Auth in Rails"

Live Build

Pick a topic (Sinatra, JavaScript + DOM events, Rails routing) and build out a simple app or write some live code in an existing app or project that offers a closer look at the topic. For example, "Live Building: Rails Routing" could see you set up a new Rails app, define some routes and simple views and talk about how routing working in Rails.

  • Title your study group: "Learn Engineer Project Build: JavaScript Events + The DOM"

Live Problem Solving

Show students how to use TDD and "thinking out loud" to solve a small code challenge. This can be framed as interview prep. Pick a code kata or, even better, a challenge from the Flatiron Technical Interview Prep for Students repo to complete with your study group.

  • Title your group "Learn Engineer Problem Solving: Something Something"

Curriculum Topic Office Hours/AMA

Pick a topic from the curriculum (the drop down menu in the create study group form will give you a sense of curriculum topics) and host office hours. This is an open format in which students can come with any questions on that topic. You can also pick a lab from that topic to review or have an idea for a small app or some code you can write together in case no one has specific questions.

  • Title your study group "Learn Engineer Office Hours: Sessions in Rails"

Logistics

Prerequisites

  • You need to be a member of the learn-co-students GitHub org. DM Sophie or Niky to invite you if you're not a member.
  • IF your study group will use a Learn lab or lesson, use the Learn IDE! In your Learn.co profile, set "in browser IDE" as your default learning environment.
  • From the "Curriculum" drop down menu on Learn.co, select "Fullstack Web Development v6"

Creating and Scheduling

  • Sign up for an Engineering Study Group slot on the student council google cal. Engineering Study groups are held from 6-7pm on Wendesdays.
  • Create a scheduled Zoom meeting using your WeWork zoom account.
  • Visit Learn.co
  • Click the big green "create a study group" button
  • Fill out the form, including the Zoom link, and hit submit!

Alerting/Reminding Students

Thanks to the Study Group Bot, a brand-new slack bot, you don't have to do anything! The bot will slack the relevant student slack channels in learn-co.slack.com 15 minutes before your study group starts with a reminder.

Survey Students

  • Share this survey with your Zoom attendees at the end of the study group.