/group-projects

A collection of group projects that can be used to teach collaboration and real-life project management skills to CodeYourFuture students.

Group Projects

A collection of group projects that can be used to teach collaboration and real-life project management skills to CodeYourFuture students.

Outline

Each project is designed to be undertaken by 2-4 students, preferably within a week or two. It should rely mostly on skills they already have, but in some cases students will be encouraged to independently research solutions to problems or new tools they encounter along the way.

Goals

  • Provide extra challenges for students seeking them
  • Develop collaboration skills on real-life projects
  • Transfer skills and knowledge back to the main class
  • Require as little mentor involvement and upkeep as possible
  • Build out and differentiate students' GitHub portfolios

Skills to teach

These projects were devised in response to requests from students in the Glasgow class for more practical projects and an additional mid-week class. When determining what skills to teach, we should take care not to preempt future lessons in the course, and to prioritize skills which the students can teach each other later on, when the full class gets involved in projects.

Some of the skills we've identified that students can help teach each other on the graduate project:

  • SASS, LESS and other CSS compilers
  • Breaking a project into discrete components
  • Coordinating with others on pull requests, code architecture, etc
  • Familiarity with third-party libs (form controls, authentication, etc)

Notes for mentors

  • Ensure work is shared in projects and one person isn't taking on everything.
  • Encourage students to solve problems independently. Be the non-techy project manager who points out problems.
  • Encourage students to refactor often, to develop good habits.
  • Let students go down the wrong alleys a bit. It's good learning.

Projects

Below is a short list of projects that have been compiled. Please identify, conceive and add additional projects.

Server-less projects

These projects can be completed without waiting for students to learn about Node/DB.

Express/MongoDB projects

These projects are designed to reinforce basic CRUD operations using Node/MongoDB.

  • Progress Chart - Implement a small app to track your learning progress.
  • Shopping - Implement a small shopping app with rating and comments.
  • FAQ - Implement a small FAQ app with searching.

License

All images, mockups and other visual assets are copyright their respective owners. These assets are for educational use only. Please consult each project for licensing details.