Java Presentations

[dmelcer9]

So our team is a bit low on programmers, and this past season, we didn't really do a good job of teaching new ones. In my free time, I've started to make some presentations for next year's pre-season to teach the underclassmen how to Java, but I need some honest feedback on the presentations I'm working on.

I've only created one so far: https://docs.google.com/presentation...it?usp=sharing, and it would be nice to know what works and what doesn't work before creating 20 more (the presentation was based on this outline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing)

I'm trying a completely different approach than what we did this past year- JShell is a large part of the training (it's in open beta, but it's mostly bug-free), and I'm trying to make it more example based and hands-on.

Note that the speaker notes also contains some content. Comments are enabled for both the outline and the presentation if you want to give feedback about one specific part.

When I refer to the whiteboards in the presentation, our team is getting a few 4'x8' sheets of whiteboard material and cutting them to fit the tables in the robotics room.

[Poseidon5817]

Originally Posted by dmelcer9

So our team is a bit low on programmers, and this past season, we didn't really do a good job of teaching new ones. In my free time, I've started to make some presentations for next year's pre-season to teach the underclassmen how to Java, but I need some honest feedback on the presentations I'm working on.

I've only created one so far: https://docs.google.com/presentation...it?usp=sharing, and it would be nice to know what works and what doesn't work before creating 20 more (the presentation was based on this outline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing)

I'm trying a completely different approach than what we did this past year- JShell is a large part of the training (it's in open beta, but it's mostly bug-free), and I'm trying to make it more example based and hands-on.

Note that the speaker notes also contains some content. Comments are enabled for both the outline and the presentation if you want to give feedback about one specific part.

When I refer to the whiteboards in the presentation, our team is getting a few 4'x8' sheets of whiteboard material and cutting them to fit the tables in the robotics room.

Wow! That's really good! We used 10 or so slideshows to teach Java a couple of years back, and it worked pretty well. The only (two) things I would recommend are 1) Shorten it a little, it will be hard to keep a large group's attention for 48 slides, especially if you're in a lecture setting rather than a private lesson for four or five people. 2) Add some practice review problems at the end, it helps solidify the learning by requiring them to recall what they just saw.

But 20 more? Man, you got your work cut out for you! How long did one take to make? 3 hours?

[dmelcer9]

Thanks!

In regards to length, we don't have too many meetings during pre-season, so I need to cram all of Java into about 18-20 afternoons. I'm hoping that the occasional joke and making sure that they are actually doing stuff keeps them from getting bored.

Originally Posted by Poseidon5817

2) Add some practice review problems at the end, it helps solidify the learning by requiring them to recall what they just saw.

I plan on doing that for most of the presentations. I'm just not sure what to put before even teaching booleans/if statements.

Originally Posted by Poseidon5817

But 20 more? Man, you got your work cut out for you! How long did one take to make? 3 hours?

I made a overview of what all the presentations will be like before I started: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing. Definitely still a WIP. Each presentation takes a while, but that might have more to do with having almost no free time than the presentation itself. I plan on releasing them all when I'm done. Maybe I can post them here as they are made.

[dmelcer9]

Forgot to post presentation 2, so here it is:

Outline:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Actual Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation...it?usp=sharing