Please encourage other developers you know to coach. I still need about 10 more coaches. :)
And please encourage anyone you think may be interested in attending to apply
Thanks & ❤ Jen Diamond
Everything you need to know is on the Rails Girls LA website or you can ask me. [email protected]
- This is the official Rails Girls Coaching Guide
- This sums up the feelings of some of the students on the day of the workshop
- Help students install Rails and everything they need to do build their app tomorrow.
- The checklist
Don't forget
- your computer
- your power cord
- maybe an extension cord
- your patience for installing
We will have some snacks & pizza for coaches if you get peckish or are coming straight from work.
:) but you may want to pick up some dinner first if you hate pizza.
Don’t worry about being a bit late on Friday but let me know if you signed up for Friday and you can't make it. There are always less coaches on Friday so we count on those who do sign up especially if you are familiar with Windows.
- Sign in
- find your students
- have a bit of breakfast
- get settled in and start the day
- The Guide (tutorial) This is the tutorial we will go through with the students. It is not a race to get through it all. Aim for getting up to the part where it says to take a break. Anything past that point is frosting.
After Lunch the coaches will introduce themselves
and briefly talk about their path to becoming a developer.
By brief I mean a minute or two. There are 17 coaches so we need to get through everyone quickly.
This is meant to inspire the students and to get to know each other better.
Please don't be late. Your students will be looking for you first thing in the morning.
Spokeo 199 S Los Robles Ave. Pasadena, CA 91101
Friday & Saturday - Park for free in the basement of the building.
- Breakfast and coffee
- Lunch Veggie and other.
- At the party we will have bakery treats! If you have allergies or food requirements/restrictions you might want to bring your own food. There isn't much close by. There is a fridge there. :)
Let me know if you are interested in doing a short talk
(by short I mean a real 5 minutes and super beginner level)
If you did a talk previously feel free to recycle it.
- Rails Generators
- Scaffolds: Rails App Structure
- Gems / Gemfile / Gem Management
- MVC, REST/Resources
- Models and Active Record
- Controllers and ActionController
- Views and ERB
- Continuing in Coding
- What is a Framework?
- The Anatomy of a Web Request
- Rails Resources
- Dealing with Frustration
- Debugging
- Anything that seems appropriate
Please read this Gist about coaching:
Are the words “easy,” “basic,” “clearly,” “obviously,” etc., ever helpful?
This may be your first time or your hundredth time coaching but this is what we would like out of our coaches. :)
- Don't assume that all the women present are students
Half the coaches are women && professional developers. Best practice is to ask if the woman you are addressing is a coach first then she can correct you if she is not. We will have special coach name tags as well. - Go through the tutorial so Saturday is not the first day you have seen it
If you notice any errors even spelling or formatting errors, LMK so I can fix them. - Have your students sit side by side and sit behind them They should be able to see each others screen.
- Encourage your students to take turns reading the tutorial out loud to each other
This will give them practice hearing and saying the terminology and you won't miss anything by skimming over it. - Encourage them to help each other
- Explain the benefits of pairing
- Don't get on their computers unless absolutely necessary Try telling them what to do first.
- Patience, willingness to help, and a friendly attitude :)
- Encourage students not to copy and paste unless it's a really big blob of code like the css.
- Being able to answer all sorts of questions in a beginner friendly way
(even if the explanation isn’t technically, completely exact) - Don’t be afraid to ask for help from other coaches or Google things. It's good for the students to know that learning is a process. There will be floater coaches to help out the coaches with any problems.
- Often coaches who are just one step ahead of attendees are the best at explaining :)
- Use real life metaphors and explain very high-level.
Explaining too deep will cause a flood of information that is not necessary at the beginning. Don't worry if the metaphor doesn't hold up all the way. - Leave your strong opinions about programming at home
We can get drinks another time and hash them out then. Let the students form their own opinions at least today. - If there is something wrong with the tutorial on the day of the workshop work through the problem as best you can.
Ask another coach for help if needed. It's good for the students to see that you don't always know the answers, there will always be bugs and that you have to be patient to fix them. Let the other coaches know about the error.
All the students have gone through these tutorials.
- Some of the students are pure beginners. Be patient. :)
- Some of the students are getting a CS degree or have experience programming and just want to expand their knowledge. Try to help them connect the dots between Rails and what they already know. Encourage them to coach next time.
On the day of the event text me if something horrible happens and you can't come.
Jen Diamond, at 323-363-0002