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Certainly agreed that being able to code is necessary. I’d argue it’s necessary and not sufficient. > Do you plan on at least giving these students a chance to

Certainly agreed that being able to code is necessary. I’d argue it’s necessary and not sufficient. > Do you plan on at least giving these students a chance to retake prior units without further charging them for knowledge you should have already taught them? Students are actually strongly encouraged to retake units at no additional cost in order to move on to the next level, and in some instances we require it. This is actually where some of the greatest frustration comes. It would be easy to close our eyes and wave people along but we have to say at times, “You’re not quite there yet, let’s keep working at it.” That’s not what students want to hear.

sugarwater 6y ago
But you implemented changes so that the students themselves determine whether or not they want to flex? That's what happened the last two units for me... For two build weeks I was in a team of 8 people, and in both cases only one other person showed up. There were no repercussions for those that didn't attend build week and they continued on to the next unit regardless of whether or not they were ready. You grade yourself model and you flex yourself model is horrendous. I know some auto-grading has (very) slowly been implemented in earlier units, but essentially I went through 1/3rd of the program without any feedback other than my own, with two terrible teachers that were both new to teaching.
- shay_ker 6y ago
  > This is actually where some of the greatest frustration comes. It would be easy to close our eyes and wave people along but we have to say at times, “You’re not quite there yet, let’s keep working at it.” That’s not what students want to hear. I hear that this is good feedback, but looking at sugarwater's response that seemingly matches up w/ the original critique, maybe the current situation falls short of what you're trying to do, Austen? These may be outliers, but from my perspective, the frustrations seem valid.
  - sugarwater 6y ago
    It's not an outlier of an experience. My cohort really did go through 2 units with no one looking at our assessments and assignments, and we determined whether or not we passed onto the next unit. It was an organizational mess.
Saporaku 6y ago
I think that some of the issue with allowing students to retake is that there is a lot of pressure to continue the program regardless of skill because: A) self judgement and passing leaves the unconfident people at a severe disadvantage regardless of their skill B) it’s not codified in the contract that this is allowed. It’s a worry that a student will be ejected if they are not performing or worth the time investment by lambda. That can look like missing resources or scheduling delays, which do seem to happen. It seems to be a normal event for cancellation for help from a tl or a technical hiccup not to be answered for several days.

sugarwater 6y ago

But you implemented changes so that the students themselves determine whether or not they want to flex? That's what happened the last two units for me... For two build weeks I was in a team of 8 people, and in both cases only one other person showed up. There were no repercussions for those that didn't attend build week and they continued on to the next unit regardless of whether or not they were ready. You grade yourself model and you flex yourself model is horrendous. I know some auto-grading has (very) slowly been implemented in earlier units, but essentially I went through 1/3rd of the program without any feedback other than my own, with two terrible teachers that were both new to teaching.

shay_ker 6y ago
> This is actually where some of the greatest frustration comes. It would be easy to close our eyes and wave people along but we have to say at times, “You’re not quite there yet, let’s keep working at it.” That’s not what students want to hear. I hear that this is good feedback, but looking at sugarwater's response that seemingly matches up w/ the original critique, maybe the current situation falls short of what you're trying to do, Austen? These may be outliers, but from my perspective, the frustrations seem valid.
- sugarwater 6y ago
  It's not an outlier of an experience. My cohort really did go through 2 units with no one looking at our assessments and assignments, and we determined whether or not we passed onto the next unit. It was an organizational mess.

Saporaku 6y ago

I think that some of the issue with allowing students to retake is that there is a lot of pressure to continue the program regardless of skill because: A) self judgement and passing leaves the unconfident people at a severe disadvantage regardless of their skill B) it’s not codified in the contract that this is allowed. It’s a worry that a student will be ejected if they are not performing or worth the time investment by lambda. That can look like missing resources or scheduling delays, which do seem to happen. It seems to be a normal event for cancellation for help from a tl or a technical hiccup not to be answered for several days.