15 february 2022

so, it's been a while

lately I've been feeling quite busy, and honestly haven't been able to log into town for long

but I want to keep posting my class diaries, so I hope when things get better I'm able to hang out more around here

anyways, here's a summary of the last two (I think?) classes that I didn't submit yet:

2022-02-11

we finished talking about OOP, so we taught them inheritance, polymorphism, magic methods, all that good stuff

I'll be honest with ya: I'm not sure how well the class went, since I didn't watch it for long. I wish things were different, but as of now the main teacher is able to lecture all by himself, so I don't generally feel very useful (I've been participating more, tho)

as a result, I just... don't do very much. I do what I'm told to, and when the teacher or a student asks me something I'm all up for answering it, but most of the time there's not much else for me to do

but apart from that, the classes went mostly fine. the teacher is still quite fast, but now that we've finished the topics I think he'll be able to slow things down a bit, but we're literally 2 classes from finishing the module, so... yeah

2022-02-11

so, this one's different. the main teacher spoke to me about monday's class beforehand, and stated he wouldn't be able to lecture 'cause he was going for a trip

so I lectured all by myself, and honestly it went pretty good!

I wasn't supposed to lecture about anything new, so I wrote this very big notebook that covers literally everything we've seen so far. It was quite fun making it!

I turned down the pace a bit, so it matched my own rhythm of giving lessons, which is quite slow (not as in boring, just more patient) and I felt that made a difference. I really like the new teacher, but as opposed to the previous he's just sooo fast. and I feel the class is not used to such pace, and thus they learn a little bit slower

well, I'm rambling. what matters is that at the end of the class I got to talk to the students a little bit and it felt good to get to know them a bit more.

also one of them told me that I just lectured him his best class yet. I felt so so happy :)

but yeah, that's it!

cya tomorrow~

permalink

09 february 2022

I didn't login to town for the last few days, due to being too busy lately

that being said, I want to keep maintaining a log for the classes, so here I am once again

later today we'll have class once again, but I'll just give an update about monday's class

since last friday's class was packed full of theory about OOP, the main teacher decided it would be nice to have a class full of exercises so the students could apply and better comprehend the concepts. it worked out pretty well!

but I didn't get to do much work, in comparison. I did join in to answer a question or two, and felt happy about it, but most of the time I had pretty much nothing to do lol

so I used the time to research prices for a new keyboard I intend to buy once I receive my salary and also study some Python concepts the teacher spoke about that I did not fully understand

all in all I'm having a way better dynamic with the current teacher, and by the end of this month I'll be a main teacher myself, and am pretty stoked about it :)o

see ya later today for the feels on the class!

permalink

04 february 2022

so lately I haven't been able to record my feels about the classes

things are crazy right now and I have a lot of stuff to worry about, apart from how tired I get after the classes end

Monday

anyways, on monday we had a review of all the topics so far on the module:

• variables, inputs and output
• lists, tuples, dictionaries
• functions

it was good, mostly answering to questions and doing exercises together with the class; it's nice to see how much they've learned, even though they're still beginners

anyways it was my last class as an auxiliary teacher for my friend, who mentored me through this first step in the company

Wednesday

it was my first class as an auxiliary teacher for a different main teacher, whom I did not know beforehand

he's quite knowledgeable in general, but I'm not much of a fan of his way of teaching, if I'm being honest

of course, we'll work together for three more weeks at least, so it's not like I'm going to quit or anything. also it's mostly my personal preference about how he conducts the class; I'm sure the students will be fine, and I'll be there to support them if they don't

oh yeah, we reviewed some topics of the first module and started to introduce Object-Oriented Programming; they got to see how to create a class and instantiate an object.

regardless of my personal opinions the class went fine, even tho it was quite long. I'm eager to see how the next weeks will be like.

anyway, see ya soon~

permalink

28 january 2022

today's one of those days

I'm not feeling well emotionally, and even though I'm being able to push myself to study some Go I'm still not feeling well

I have some exams coming up, 'recovery' exams in a loose translation; basically my final grades were not high enough for me to be approved, but they weren't low enough for me to fail the course (as in Physics, for example) completely

so they let me do an additional exam, a 'recovery' exam, to see if I'm qualified for at least be approved with the minimum possible grade

and I haven't studied at all for any of my two recovery exams as of yet; I don't feel motivated to do so, and I haven't been able to push myself to do so. it's just so much easier to just let it happen and attend to the course again in the next semester. I just don't want the responsibility right now.

anyway my mood's been pretty gloomy in general, and I hope I feel better tomorrow

at least I was able to do some cleaning on the house, and later today I'll be working again. so maybe that makes me feel better.

since timezones are weird, my next feels entry will be marked as if it were written tomorrow, but for me it's still the same day.

anyways, see ya soon (hopefully feeling better)

permalink

27 january 2022

so today I had my first experience as a main teacher

to clarify: my company differentiates 'main' teachers from 'auxiliary' teachers, in the sense that the main teacher gives the lecture, talks about the theory and solves exercises with the class and the auxiliary answer some questions, checks attendance, and sometimes solves an exercise or two

anyway, today the topic was functions. I wrote all the material back on monday, and the teacher gave me the green light. so I felt pretty confident in general, and since I have some experience talking in public I wasn't too worried.

and the class itself went pretty well! the students liked the subject and told me they got most of it, so I felt mostly satisfied.

things I noticed:

• functions are MUCH harder to understand than I was anticipating; it's funny how 'automatic' things get to us when we're used to them, but explaining it to someone who has no idea about what functions are and how they work proved to be quite a challenge.
• lecturing for 3 hours is harsh. I didn't feel tired, because it's really dynamic; but my throat did start to 'scratch' a little bit.
• sometimes I get overexcited when explaining a topic, and even tho it wasn't too bad and the students eventually understood the concepts, I feel like I ended up explaining some topics too fast for them to properly comprehend
• I'm really glad I was able to finish explaining the theory behind functions (+ answer their questions) in an hour or so; that gave me time to solve two exercises with them, and that really made a difference in their understanding of the subject, I feel

in the end of the class I told them it was my first time lecturing as a main teacher, and all of them praised me a lot for the class :) I felt really happy, it was just so awesome to hear

but anyway it was a good class. I hope the next ones are as good

see ya soon :)

permalink

24 january 2022

I pretty much studied golang all day lol

so I went to a doctor to discuss some of my eating habits, and starting this week I'll try to change some stuff...

for lunch we had some nice steak and some refreshing salad, it was really good

for tea (as in, the afternoon meal) I had something vastly different from what I'd usually do: I made some fruit salad; unfortunately it wasn't such a great combination it was like 2 apples, a banana and some strawberry. but I mean, it's fruit so of course it was good

for dinner I pretty much ate the leftovers, and that was it lol

I don't plan on like recording my struggle to adopt new eating habits on this platform, but sometimes it'll happen I guess

anyway I also spent quite some time with my SO, which always makes me happy :)

and that's it folks, see ya soon~

permalink

22 january 2022

ok so because of timezones today's class will be a new feels entry, hoorayy

today we talked about dictionaries:

• creating dictionaries
• dictionaries vs. lists
• adding new entries on a dictionary
• when to use dictionaries (databases)
• some other cool details

we finished the theoretical portion of the class pretty quickly: in less than an hour and a half, our new record

but we got into some practical examples, and that together with a load of questions from our students got us busy for the rest of the class

in the end we introduced them to the final project they'll have to develop, and talked a little bit about it

what I really really liked about today's class was that, although it was full of new things to learn and sometimes hard to understand, the students really got engaged in the project!

two of them talked about ideas they had for personal projects and would like to implement, with our help of course:

• one of them wanted to know what would be a good way to get info from various workers from the company he works at, so they could schedule vacation easily
• the other one wanted to create a GUI for a similar purpose, and started texting me with directions to which libraries to use

also one student was talking about how they started to use XOR in their programs in such creative implementations, with such a big smile on their face. it was lovely.

you see, I still can't call myself a teacher as of now. not because of shame, for it is one of the most honorable professions imo; but because I've been teaching for such little time that it just doesn't feel right to bear such a title. but apart from that, after answering the students' questions, I feel so rewarded! simply giving directions to a student and encouraging them to develop their own scripts and programs gives me such joy.

it also helps me with learning new things, since I'm forced to get out of my comfort zone to try to help my students with their needs

in summary, giving classes is so fun :)

permalink

21 january 2022

last wednesday I was too tired to write about how the class went, so I'll try to cover both wednesday class as well as today's

2021-01-19

we talked about lists and using for loops on lists

the class went fine, but there was just sooo much stuff to cover

the topics we covered were:

• list basics (what is a list, why do we use lists and how to implement them)
• list functions (len(), max(), min(), etc.
• list methods (append(), pop(), insert(), remove(), etc.)

a lot of questions came our way, and we ended up having to create around 5 examples to explain to the students how should they do stuff

there were literally 14 exercises the school told'em to solve, but we topped it down to around 6 exercises

it was the most mentally and phisically taxing class I've had until this moment, and I can't imagine how tiresome it was to the main teacher.

anyways, the students liked it and we'll use lists a lot starting now, so they'll get the hang of it!

permalink

19 january 2022

today was an interesting day

positives:

• played some bass
• listened to Bloc Party, which is such a cool band
• studied some Go, and finally felt like I was making progress
• watched Hotel Del Luna with my sister
• sorted out a misunderstanding with my SO
• had a meeting with some professors I like

negatives:

• didn't study for my tests coming up
• felt kind of bad for comparing myself to others
• didn't hang out as much as I wanted on the town

generally positive, but still there could be less negatives...

anyway thanks for being here for me town :)

permalink

17 january 2022

2021-01-17

so today we talked about loops: while, for, ranges and all that good stuff

I think the students understood the concepts pretty well, specially because we used VS Code's embedded debugger to show the control variable's value changing over time

some very good questions about while and for loops, I'm pretty sure I asked them when I was learning, so... maybe that's a good sign?

anyway it went pretty well, some of them were a little bit quieter but that's fine. there was still quite some engagement for their part

also this was the first time I solved an exercise with the students! since I'm an auxiliary teacher (is that right?), I usually just answer some questions and give some advice here and there, the main teacher does the heavy-lifting

anyway next week I'll give my first real class, so I have some training to do and some notes to write

that was it for today :)

permalink

15 january 2022

My first feels entry

so, since this is my first time doing this, I wanted to do something different: I'll make like a diary of my teaching days, recording what worked or didn't work, what could be better, etc.

for a bit of context: I work as a part time auxiliary professor on python programming

2021-01-14

it's the second day of classes, and today we talked about boolean types + conditionals

the student mostly understood the concept, and some of their questions were really good! some notes:

• maybe the rhythm was a bit intense, I got the sense that the students were struggling just a little bit and maybe could benefit from a slightly more 'spaced out' pace; I'll take that into account next time I'm on the subject
• maybe 2 examples per type of conditional would make the general understanding of the subject better; I feel like we jumped too quickly from if to else and then back to elif
• also on that topic: I feel like presenting if -> elif -> else might be more natural, since that's how we generally structure python conditional blocks
• still on class pace: a bit more of 'silence' might be good, asking for examples from the students themselves rather than coming up with them, leaving those few seconds of waiting for someone to speak for them to think and absorb the subject

Conclusion

I think that's it for now; since we're still on the beginning of the grade plan I believe thinks are still under control... can't guarantee they'll stay that way when we get to pandas lol

I'll go grab a beer, see ya soon

permalink