Teaching in Porto, day five

For the final day of the week-long masterclass, I had no agenda. This was a time for the students to work on their own projects, but I was there to answer any remaining questions they might have.

As I suspected, the people with the most interest and experience in development were the ones with plenty of questions. I was more than happy to answer them. With no specific schedule for the day, we were free to merrily go chasing down rabbit holes.

SVG? Sure, I’d be happy to talk about that. More JavaScript? My pleasure! Databases? Not really my area of expertise, but I’m more than willing to share what I know.

It was a fun day. The centrepiece was a most excellent lunch across the river at a really traditional seafood place.

At the very end of the day, after everyone else had gone, I sat down with Tiago to discuss how the week went. Overall, I was happy. I was nervous going into this masterclass — I had never done a whole week of teaching — but based on the feedback I got, I think I did okay. There were times when I got impatient, and I wish I could turn back the clock and erase those moments. I noticed that those moments tended to occur when it was time for hands-on-keyboards coding: “no, not like that — like this!” I need to get better at handling those situations. But when we working on paper, or having stand-up discussions, or when I was just geeking out on a particular topic, everything felt quite positive.

All in all, this week has been a great experience. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I felt it was a real honour and a privilege to be involved with the New Digital School. I’ve enjoyed doing hands-on teaching, and I’d like to do more of it.

This was originally posted on my own site.