{"id":2596,"date":"2015-09-10T12:09:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T19:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mozscienceblog.wpengine.com\/?p=2596"},"modified":"2015-09-10T12:09:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T19:09:58","slug":"sprints-selectors-and-pandas-on-learning-in-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/mozilla-science\/sprints-selectors-and-pandas-on-learning-in-the-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Sprints, Selectors, and Pandas: On Learning in the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago I joined Mozilla Science Labs as the program\u2019s first Instructional Designer. My path to MSL had twists and turns: I studied biology in college but graduated with a BFA in studio art; I created science museum exhibits before heading to grad school to study interactive technology; I taught programming while freelancing as a writer of museum audio tours; My last gig was with a design studio that made everything from smartphone apps to immersive media environments. I\u2019m used to switching gears, to being new… you could say I\u2019m professionally new.\u00a0 And that \u201cfirst-day\u201d feeling is always still exciting and uncomfortable. There are so many blanks to fill in \u2014new relationships, new systems, a totally new environment to learn and master. <\/p>\n

So what can the immersive, full-on learning experience of\u00a0 \u201cbeing new\u201d IRL (in real life) tell us about learning more generally, when we\u2019re new to a programming language or a set of practices, like open source?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2028Secret Languages Create Barriers to Entry<\/strong>
\nDuring my first days at Mozilla, I wasn\u2019t surprised to find myself totally lost in very basic conversations. Words like \u201cwork week\u201d and \u201cfirehose\u201d were tossed about casually; the terms were familiar to me, but the usage was new. Sometimes I\u2019d stop a conversation to get clarification, sometimes I\u2019d just smile and nod, make assumptions based on context cues, and do some frantic googling later on. At the end of my first week I\u2019d collected a dozen mysterious terms, and in the spirit of collaboration, I crowd-sourced definitions<\/a> from my new colleagues (turns out, the \u201cfirehose\u201d is \u201cthe entirety of the Mozilla ‘signal’ flooding your inbox, IRC\u00a0 client,\u00a0 Skype, texts, phone, Vidyo, GitHub repos, social media, and every waking thought; the large body of information you have to parse\u2026into learning and action items for yourself\u201d).<\/p>\n

Every discipline\/ institution\/culture has its own language, languages that are often opaque to newcomers. \u201cRunning a sprint<\/a>\u201d means one thing to an athlete, another to software developer who wants to gather colleagues together for an intense, focused work session.\u00a0 The \u201cselector<\/a>\u201d I use when I\u2019m creating Cascading Style Sheets (which change the visual appearance of a web page) is not the same \u201cselector<\/a>\u201d I want when I\u2019m throwing a reggae dance party and need someone with a great vinyl collection to choose the tunes. \u201cPanda<\/a>\u201d and \u201cpython<\/a>\u201d have a particular meaning to the ecologist or snake enthusiast and another to the researcher who\u2019d like to use the general purpose, high-level programming language Python<\/a> to analyze data (there\u2019s a Python library called Pandas<\/a> that does just that). Using opaque language can discourage new contributors. And sometimes even those of us fluent in a secret language get so immersed in jargon that we lose track of meaning (here\u2019s a handy jargon-busting tool<\/a>\u2014 see if you can explain your project or mission in plain language).<\/p>\n

Open Confusion Can Supercharge Your Learning<\/strong>
\nAs a learner, in the classroom as well as the workplace, it\u2019s been both a huge frustration and a great pleasure to encounter secret languages. Suddenly realizing I have no idea what anyone is talking about is unnerving; groking<\/a> (grokking?) (programmer slang for \u201cunderstanding\u201d) a new word means I\u2019m leveling up, becoming part of the tribe, one of the cool kids. Misuse of a term betrays my status as a n00b (that\u2019s internet slang for new, uninitiated user– see image above). To level up, learners need to be in an environment where it\u2019s safe to ask and show confusion. In the world of the web, gaming, and general computer nerdery\u2014 even on very useful question and answer sites like Stack Overflow<\/a>\u2014\u00a0 there\u2019s an unhelpful undercurrent of scorn for those not in-the-know, or anyone who seems lost or mistaken.\u00a0 For most of us, asking a question in any environment comes with a possible perceived risk of looking stupid, a sense of risk that\u2019s heightened in academic and professional settings where so much depends on appearing competent at all times. We may conceal our confusion about things we\u2019re \u201csupposed to know\u201d and waste time and energy trying to puzzle them out on our own. Instead, we could use our confusion to open up our learning processes, get help, and create relationships with\u00a0 other learners and teachers along the way, and improve the learning experience for everyone in our community.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Easy to Forget What You Didn\u2019t Know<\/strong>
\nAs an instructor at community colleges as well as grad programs, I\u2019ve tried to create learning environments that feel safe for all n00bz, where lots of questions and some open confusion are part of the process. When I first started teaching intro programming courses, I thought the fact that I\u2019d come to programming late, as a visual artist, and struggled mightily with my first loops and objects would make me a better, more empathic instructor than the programming ninja who\u2019d been hacking away since 1st grade. But I was surprised to find that those once baffling computer science concepts had become so familiar to me that it was a challenge to explain them clearly to newcomers. I needed to slow down, simplify, unpack all assumptions, and define all terms.\u00a0 Once we\u2019re fluent in a new discipline, those words and ideas become part of our everyday life, and we forget their strangeness, complexity, and special power. Part of effective teaching is keeping in touch with that sense of being new to topic, that \u201cfirst day\u201d feeling. For teachers, returning to a learning role in a real way by delving into something outside our field or comfort zone (whether it\u2019s skateboarding<\/a> or the statistical computing software R<\/a>) is a good way to expand our teaching skills.<\/p>\n

Towards Open Learning and Open Teaching<\/strong>
\nThe tools and languages we have to learn and share have amazing potential. And we expand their potential when we share and learn with people outside our own cozy disciplines and institutions. Working in the open demands that we also teach and learn in the open, and I\u2019m excited to work with others at Mozilla to figure out what this means. Here\u2019s a first pass: as open learners, we\u2019re most effective when we admit what we don\u2019t know, ask brave questions, and give ourselves permission to be openly confused, and actively seek out for allies and collaborators in learning. As open teachers, we\u2019re most effective when we reflect on our assumptions, use transparent language, take time to get to know our learners, encourage their questions and welcome confusion, find learners where they are, and seek out challenging learning experiences for ourselves.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Chad Sansing (@chadsansing) for feedback on this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago I joined Mozilla Science Labs as the program\u2019s first Instructional Designer. My path to MSL had twists and turns: I studied biology in college but graduated with a BFA in studio art; I created science museum exhibits … Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290376],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}