Not a MOOC, still Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace - XCamp

Mentoring based approach in learning to code at HSG

April 2018Dr. Mario Silic

What is the perception of today’s educational system when compared to 100 years ago ?

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The way of teaching

Background

• Traditional way of teaching is changing…flipped classroom was a first step

• However, 1) an effective flip requires careful preparation; 2) Students still have to come to class; 3) students do not see value of the hands-on portion of the model; 3) no way to guarantee students will oblige or cooperate with the flipped model; 4) the whole process relies on video materials; 5) Heavy reliance on student motivation

• Flipped classroom does not efficiently address the core teaching premises: motivation and engagementhttps://www.pinterest.com/pin/566116615633402597/

MOOC as a solution?

https://www.diygenius.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-moocs/

Challenge #2: Motivation

Challenge #3: Low completion rates

Challenge #1: Interactions

Challenge #4: Feedback and grading

Initial Ideas: Learn to Code at HSGWay to move forward in Teaching (IT) Innovation

Vision for Teaching Innovation in Coding Skills

Teacher’s role would be to act as - Content Specialist - Advisor- Mentor

HowBy driving, setting goals, coaching, assessing goal-achievement, advising students how to proceed to the next level

Changing the role of the teacher

Objective is to create Meaningful Engagement and Motivation by offering Flexibility, Availability, Presence, Collaboration, and sense of Community

https://www.tonyrobbins.com/coaching/

Old paradigm the traditional way: 1 teacher 1 programming language X students

New approach X students 12 programming languages Teaching as a Service (Mentor role)

The processExperimental set-up – the Vision

Phase I: Selected Set of Coding Competencies

1) Teaching as a Service (TaaS)- Each Student gets 10 support hour credits (eg skype call or

instant chat) from the mentor (student can pass his/her credits to another student)

- The content specialist / advisor can define TaaS availability hours (eg each Tuesday from 2pm-5pm Instant Chat opened)

2) Self-paced e-learning - Offering includes various introductory and advanced

programming courses (e.g., Javascript, HTML, python, etc.)- Students announce which course of the portfolio they are

interested in and when they want their learning process to start, and what is their timeframe to achieve a certain goal level.

- The self-paced learning can start at any time and would not be bound to a class schedule or single term

3) Kick Off- at the beginning of the course, live presence to explain mechanics &

work details

4) Community building

- use social collaboration tools (eg Slack) focus on motivation to succeed & complete but also to bring in the feeling of the community

5) Online platform

- Use of OpenEdX / open source platform used by Harvard/MIT/many others schools

- Installed on AWS Amazon- Integrated collaborative features including forum, chat, etc.- Advanced collaboration features

Phase II: Process

6) Grading – Assessment

- Switch to goal / project oriented assessment

- Student’s performance is not related anymore to the grade but to the acquired skills

- Grading = learning outcome = how someone is capable completing the task

- Grading is more about describing the performance rather than assigning a grade

Phase III: Grading & Coaching

- With focus on Learning Analytics as the basis for the personalized teaching services

Phase III: Grading & Coaching

Learning skills 2 out of 82 acquired

However, the realities were slightly different....

For running an experimental pilot we posted a Facebook Ad on «Sharing is Caring»

Over 250+ applications/emails received within 30min of posting the ad

The unexpected interest required a more robust, scalable, automated approach...

Proposing a novel approach through XCamp

How to Create engagement & motivation

- Through the use of interactive, collaborative online tools

Flexibilitycourses offerings

CommunitySlack/Trello

Repl.itonline compiler

Learning Analytics

Meaningful Engagement + Motivation

Video conferencing

novel approach through XCamp

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XCamp – Innovative Learning to Code Platform

XCamp approach aims at achieving Meaningful engagement Motivation Flexibility Availability / presence Collaboration, and sense of community through an

innovative learning to code platform

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XCamp – Innovative learning to code platform

Overview

Teaching as a Service (TaaS) Choice to learn one or more out of 12 languages Self-paced e-learning: Anytime/Anywhere/Anyplace - XCamp Community building: social collaboration & motivation Goal / Skills / project oriented assessment Learning Analytics: Learning and skills objectives approach Fully integrated & automated online compiler system Gamified learning platform: levels, scoring, levels, etc. Shop: spend earned by points Mentor’s feedback: review of student code with instant feedback Online and Offline events: students had an option to attend coding events to get help

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XCamp – a fully gamified platform

Instant feedback

Levels

Points

Grades

Monsters league

Objectives

Learning status

Badges

Skills

Leaderboard

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The process

Step 1: User registers+ Selects Avatar Step 2: Classroom selection

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The process

Step 3: User selects the language to learn

IMPORTANT: - There is no minimum of languages that student can learn- Student can switch the learning from one language to another at any moment

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The platform

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The platform

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The platform

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The platform

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Mentor’s Feedback

Mentor’s Feedback

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XCamp – InteractionsXCamp is about creating meaningful interactions to motivate group learning, social

engagement, and mentor-to-individual interactions.

Online collaboration Social interactions

Live events

Instant code feedback

Mentor

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XCamp – Interactions: Slack

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XCamp – Interactions: Slack

XCamp – Code Center: Shop

XCamp – Shop: Spend points

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XCamp – Monster’s League

XCamp – Sneak User’s Code

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XCamp – Learning Outcomes

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XCamp – Live events with Coding@HSG

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XCamp – Online Events

Results

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XCamp – experimental pilot resultsPilot study was ran at HSG from Sept-Dec 2017

ResultsUnexpected interest to enroll: over 250+ applications within a day – accepted first 48 students

92% of the students completed the course

40% of the students learnt at least 2 languages ( 12% learnt 3 languages)

88% answered to be highly satisfied with learning experience / 95% said it helped them to learn a new language

Mentor’s support (89%) – instant feedback followed by gamification elements (85%) were answered to be the most valuable elements of the platform

Learning outcomesAcquired 10 basic programming skillsMastered basic, debugging and advanced objectivesApplied knowledge in delivering a group project (eg., blockchain in python) through collaborative programming

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XCamp – experimental pilot results

Examples of completed group projects:

Block chain in python

Coffee Order Mobile App in Javascript

Machine learning in python

IMDB database analysis

NY times books …

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XCamp – experimental setup results

interactions exchanged through Slack

Learning peek reached

after 1 month

Learning curve is curvilinear

=Mentorship need

decreases with learning increase

“I wanted to let you know how much I, and I'm sure all other participants, appreciate your incredible efforts…”

“…not only it is great fun to solve your tasks, but the whole website and structure is thought through so well...and the results is a great project all around...”

...many people want to learn how to code, but do not know where and how to start. Your website offers the perfect platform tor exactly this. The setting of choosing your own speed is also great..

Epic - INSTANT Feedback and help

...it provided me with a great introduction to Python and was an excellent opportunity to build a basis which I can build on.

I would like to thank you for initiating this great coding course and all the support you provided throughout the semester! It is really great to see such an engagement for students' learning progress.

Final thoughts

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– Amazing experience from the teaching perspective

– Achieving Meaningful Engagement through Interactions was the key success factor

– Xcamp offer interesting scaling possibilities (eg., class of 200 students with 1 mentor and 2 student-helpers covering 10 programming languages)

– Is learning process better vs classic methods?

– Is Mentor spending more time in Interactions vs classic methods?

…the answer could be in the student feedback

XCamp – Summary

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Thank you very much for introducing me to Python! I am very grateful

for the experience since I was able to use it in my daily jobs at EY as well :)!!We are actually developing a blockchain for a client, which would have not been possible for me to attend without the prior coding knowledge thanks to you!

motivation drives learning and learning is achieved only if it is really meaningful

And what can be more meaningful than applying what student learned in the professional life?

Thank you!