see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZhonJohansen
Zhon has been programming long enough to remember the PDP-11, Commodore Pet Basic, and cfront. He was introduced to Java, the language to solve all our cross platform problems and replace C as the embedded language of choice, in 1996.
Agile2006DiscoverySession (Autism: Humans: Designed for Interaction (Applying Principles of Dynamic Intelligence to Agile Communication)
Notes on
Guided Participation
- (11:39:01 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: The art of guided participation is to sneak the "coaching" in even though others don't expect it, which you're pretty good at.
- (11:33:54 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: You have to see and experience something with someone else there to guide you, because you really can't recognize your own "mistakes" or know how to correct them if...
- (11:34:01 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: And here's the key part...
- (11:34:18 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: YOU ALREADY THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND DON'T CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK.
- (11:36:46 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: Always bearing in mind to be declarative about the suggestions...
- (11:51:35 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: Dr. Barbara Rogoff (Harvard) coined "Guided Participation" in the 1960's... if you want to Google more.
- (11:52:06 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: Book: "Apprenticeship in Thinking"
- (11:52:55 AM) irepeatmyselfredundantly: Challenge/safety very important in guided participation, too.
Challenge -> Fear -> Practice -> Safety -> Boredom -> Challenge ("Zone of Proximal Development" is on the edge of challenge/novelty) The guide's job is to bridge the gap between the apprentice's understanding and something new or difficult.
Goal of Guided Participation is to transfer Wisdom, not Knowledge (information)
One technique: self-narration... speaking your mind out loud as you do something to illuminate your thought processes for others
- (okay, so now I'm writing this new unit test because I think if I pass in "null" it might cause an exception)
Should you use guided participation or other teaching methods?:
- Is your goal COMPLIANCE (unquestioned obedience like a deck hand) or THOUGHTFULNESS (midshipmen training to become captains)
Is your goal to be a JUNGLE RIDE TOUR GUIDE (create memories of an experience) or AFRICAN SAFARI LEADER (mastery of finding food & water, evading danger)
- Is your goal to teach REPEATING A DISCRETE SEQUENCE (playing notes on an instrument) or CAPTURING THE ESSENCE (making music with one very expressive note)
- Is your goal PERFORMANCE / REPEATABILITY or MASTERY / AUTONOMY?
Guided Participation is usually side-by-side, other teaching is usually face-to-face.
Software Development needs to try laying a FOUNDATION of GUIDED PARTICIPATION for working with computers, then adding "static" knowledge on top of that.
Kids learn dynamically from their parents how to interact and cope with their world before we introduce book-learning. Book learning assumes dynamic learning has been done, and adds static knowledge on top once kids know what it means to learn and interact with teachers.
Did college teach us how to do our daily activities as programmers? How to cope with changing technologies, collaborating with other programmers, testers, users or exploding open-source projects and libraries of varying quality and activity... the challenges programmers face?
Nope. It was just book learning. So we left college feeling "smart", but with absolutely no wisdom or thoughtfulness about programming whatsoever.
We had to learn backwards, which is NOT as nature intended. (Building on a foundation of sand).
Guided participation means trying to achieve a goal (which may not be "worthy" of the guide's skill level) together with a "cognitive apprentice". This (like a "Kata") allows teaching of the little lessons along the way, as communication about the goal takes place between guide and apprentice. The apprentice must have an active role in the goal, not just passive communication.
Guide is responsible to "strip down" and "slow down" experience by removing distractions or irrelevant things and taking time to highlight the important steps or decisions being made.
Guides teach with body language, silence/pauses, expressions, voice inflection, physical prompting/modeling, and doing much more than telling or talking.