deliberate practice hackership
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Practice makes perfect?
How to develop your technical skills the effective way
@Ellen_Koenig
Challenge
Clear objectives
Feedback
Repetition
Concentration
PRINCIPLES
Examples Ruby Rails Scrum
Objective ? ? ?
Feedback ? ? ?
Repetition ? ? ?
measurable verbcriterion of acceptable
performance+
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Predefined objectives: books, courses, ... Gather: Input or
feedback from experts
Define: Decomposition with selection
FINDING AND DEFINING OBJECTIVES
Precision: Substitution of vague words
DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE
I want to learn some advanced Ruby features.
DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE
Decomposition: I want to learn something about either: closures, meta programming,
methods as objects.
DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE
Selection: I want to learn something about closures.
DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE
Precision: I want to learn how closures interact with array methods.
DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE
Measurable: I want to be able to apply closures to the three array methods
„each“, „collect“ and map“ in a short Ruby demo.
Examples Ruby Rails Scrum
ObjectiveApply closures
to „each“, „map“, „collect“
Identify differences in
routing between Rails 3 and 4
Planning poker estimations no more than 50%
off
Feedback ? ? ?
Repetition ? ? ?
FEEDBACK
Evaluate
Plan
Act
Observe
Examples Ruby Rails Scrum
ObjectiveApply closures
to „each“, „map“, „collect“
Identify differences in
routing between Rails 3 and 4
Planning poker estimations no more than 50%
off
FeedbackDirect feedback: Exploration in
irb
Migrate R3 routing file to R4 with code review
from expert
Compare estimates with
real results
Repetition ? ? ?
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%0 mins 20 mins 60 mins 9 hrs 24 hrs 48 hrs 6 days 31 days
EBBINGHAUS‘ RETENTION CURVE
Rehearsals
REPETITION STRATEGIES
Foundation skill building
Scenario learningSimulations
Examples Ruby Rails Scrum
ObjectiveApply closures
to „each“, „map“, „collect“
Identify differences in
routing between Rails 3 and 4
Planning poker estimations no more than 50%
off
FeedbackDirect feedback: Exploration in
irb
Migrate R3 routing file to R4 with code review
from expert
Compare estimates with
real results
Repetition Different coding challenges
Migrate multiple files with
different features
Perform estimation each week for two
months
Clear objectives
• verb + criterion of successful performance
• Sources: Predefined, experts, own
• Refinement: decomposition and substitution
Feedback
• Can you tell if you hit your goal?
• built-in vs. explicit
• positive vs. negativeRepetition
• For how much variation do you need to plan?
• Rehearsals
• Foundational skills + simulation
DEFINE YOUR OWN APPROACH
DEFINE YOUR OWN APPROACH
Challenge
Pick something that scares you, but does
not paralyze you
Concentration
Experiment!
Eliminate external distractions,
take breaks, maybe meditate, …
Have fun learning! :)
Image Source
Slide 15: Ebbinghaus‘ curve:
Wikipedia: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vergessenskurve.png
(modified to translate from German to English and fit design)