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Warming up the Room: Icebreakers and Cold-Calling to Increase Partcipation

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Warming up the Room: Icebreakers and Cold-Calling to Increase Partcipation

by Althea Need Kaminske

As school is starting this fall, teachers and students are participating in a time honored first day of class ritual: the awkward icebreaker. While students might think they’re a bit cheesy, icebreakers serve several very important roles in class and are an excellent way to start a class. 

An obvious reason to use icebreakers is to help the teacher get to know the students and to help the students get to know each other. It’s questionable how much anyone remembers from the first day icebreakers, but that’s not the point. I usually go around the room and ask students to tell me their name, their major, and one piece of media they really got into over the break and would recommend (a TV show or a movie they watched, a book they read, etc.). While I don’t remember every detail from those initial interactions, it does open the door for some simple conversations and basic rapport building. It also gives me a sense of the personalities in the class. Were all of the students eager to share their experiences or were they more reserved and needed more coaxing to talk about what they were interested in? 

Even if the icebreaker doesn’t necessarily lead to any profound insights or immediate bonding, it serves another very important function: low-stakes participation that will help with retrieval practice later on. Once students are more comfortable talking in class, it makes it easier to get participation on course-related questions. While I like to use frequent quizzes as retrieval practice to improve students’ memory (1), asking questions throughout the lecture is a much faster way of getting feedback about students’ understanding and giving them some retrieval practice. When I ask students to share something about themselves in the icebreaker I do my best to make a positive comment about each of the things they shared so that participation is immediately rewarded, hopefully setting the tone for how I want participation to follow for the rest of the semester. Talking in front of groups can be intimidating, even more so if you are afraid of getting an answer wrong and looking silly or stupid in front of people. Icebreakers work because there is no wrong answer, removing at least one layer of potential anxiety about participating and lowering the stakes. 

Teaching Resources for Middle School Using The New York Times

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Teaching Resources for Middle School Using The New York Times

To learn more about how to use this resource, here’s a webinar.

_________

Whether you’re teaching in person or online, synchronously or asynchronously, you can use these strategies to build our features into your classroom routines and support students of all levels.

What other ideas do you have for teaching with these activities in your class? Share them in the comments.

Our Writing Prompts, What’s Going On in This Picture? and What’s Going On in This Graph? activities make great discussion starters for students of all ages and levels. Here’s how:

  • Build community. Get to know your students and help them get to know one another by using our writing prompts as icebreaker questions, like: What would your dream home look like? What have you learned about yourself during quarantine? What do the objects in your home say about you?

    Our What’s Going On in This Picture? and What’s Going On in This Graph? activities can also serve to build a positive classroom culture by fostering communication, collaboration and fun on a weekly basis.

  • Discuss and debate. Our writing prompts feature questions to inspire debate, too. Use these to practice accountable talk and civil conversations.

  • Chat in person or through video. During an in-person or live virtual session, you can post the prompt or image on a slide, then put students into (socially distanced) small groups or breakout rooms to discuss. Bring them back together and invite them to share what their partner or group said with the whole class.

  • Have conversations online. If you’re teaching remotely, you can post a question or image on your learning management system or a virtual bulletin board, like Padlet, and invite students to respond and reply to one another there in writing. For more fun, try posting it on Flipgrid and asking students to answer via video.

Teachers have told us that our regular features can provide a structure to their week that gives students something to look forward to and creates predictability in a chaotic time. Here are a few ways to try this in your classroom:

  • Begin class with a writing prompt. Whether you’re in-person or online you can use our prompts to build a daily writing habit or get students talking to one another.

  • Do What’s Going On in This Picture? or What’s Going On in This Graph? every week. You can lead a live session one day a week by projecting the image or graph on your screen and inviting students to discuss it verbally or using the chat if you are online. Watch this video of a fifth-grade teacher conducting the Visual Thinking Strategies protocol in her classroom.

    For asynchronous learning, post the image on your learning management system and invite students to comment all week. Be sure to check back for the reveal on Thursdays.

  • Start “Current Events Fridays” (or any other day of the week). Dig through our archive of Lessons of the Day to find high-interest, student-friendly articles to read and discuss. Or, invite a different student each week to present an article of their choice to the class. All of the Times articles on The Learning Network are free.

Though we try to choose the most student-friendly articles for these features, Times texts can be challenging for younger students and struggling readers. Here are some suggestions for scaffolding their use for your class:

  • Use images to activate schema. Use Picture Prompts, What’s Going On in This Picture? or the art included in our Lesson of the Day as a warm-up to activate prior knowledge, vocabulary or connections before reading the related article. Invite students to discuss the given prompts or try some of these: What do you think is going on in this image? What do you think the article is about if this is the image that illustrates it? What people, places, ideas or words might you associate with this image? What personal connections can you make to what you see?

  • Try our warm-ups. Our Lessons of the Day and Student Opinion questions come with warm-ups that can help students build background knowledge and make connections to the content before reading. These usually involve discussion or reflection questions, watching a video, or viewing images and graphs. You might do them as a class or in small groups.

  • Do a read-aloud: After completing the warm-up for our Lesson of the Day or Student Opinion questions, instead of letting students read the article on their own, read it aloud to them, encouraging them to follow along. You can do this during a live class session or record a video of yourself reading and post it on your learning management system for students to watch as they work through a lesson.

  • Chunk the text. Our Lesson of the Day and Student Opinion questions come with comprehension and discussion questions. Instead of having students read the entire article, then answer the questions, you might have them read only a few paragraphs at a time, then respond to the corresponding question before moving on to the next few paragraphs.

Our Picture Prompts and What’s Going On in This Picture? features are popular among students who are learning and developing English. They can use these images to practice vocabulary, brainstorm verbs and adjectives, or learn new words.

To further support English language learners, you might label the images with key words and encourage students to use them to build full sentences.

These make great writing or speaking and listening activities, depending on your students’ goals.

Each of these activities provides plenty of opportunity for student voice and choice in the curriculum.

For example, some teachers invite students to scroll through our list of writing prompts each week and respond to one of their choosing. You might have them post their responses on your preferred learning management system or share what they learned with the class via a live presentation or virtual bulletin board, like Padlet. You can try this with any of our features.

And if your students are fairly independent writers, as a bonus assignment, you can challenge them to enter at least one Learning Network contest of their choice throughout the school year.

Best Content Awards 2020

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Best Content Awards 2020

Welcome!  Anyone who tells you that 105 is uncomfortable, I am here to say, yeah, probably, unless you are like me and grew up in the Southwest (in the U.S.), then it is refreshing.  Especially with a pool.

Anyway, I am coming to you from the Tucson area of Arizona. Think desert and mountains, and you have Tucson, well the part I am in.

Why you ask, am I telling you such information, well, it is because it is from this area, that I will be announcing the debut Best 3rd Party Content Awards, from TCWG (The Craig Weiss Group).  I felt that having awards only for learning systems, wasn’t enough, because off-the-shelf content plays a huge role.  After all, without content what do you have? Nothing I tell, you nothing (Runaway Jury quote).  In all seriousness, without content you wouldn’t need a learning system of any sort, just give folks binders of paper (like the old days).

Before jumpining into the awards, it likely will make sense to discuss a few tidbits.

The awards are for off-the-shelf content, this is content that a 3rd party provider builds and sells to the client (business, orgs, companies, government, education, associations, etc.) who then offer it to their employees, customers, members, students or all of sum.  The learner audience doesn’t buy it or pay for it.  You will see this type of content with a chunk of learning systems, regardless of type, either in a visible marketplace (uh, the client sees it) or via the phone.  Other examples of this type of content can be found in what I refer to as content aggregators – where it is a platform of sorts, that has partnership agreements with multiple 3rd party providers (min of two).

These awards are not for custom developers, where you can go, pay $$ and get a properitary course (this is specifically based on whatever materials you provide them – maybe Widget Sales – How to Ripoff People) and they build it.  In the industry, we refer to these folks as custom development shops or boutique shops. 

There are a few points to remember about off-the-shelf content.

  • The industry refers to it as either off-the-shelf content, off-the-shelf 3rd party content, off-the-shelf 3rd party providers, content partners, or they just say content (with the assumption that you know it is built by another provider).  Some just say the name of the provider thinking you will automatically know it, or just push the topic/subject, again thinking you will know that it is not made by them (which leads me too..)
  • Everyone pitches micro-learning content, which means short – but short is ambigious – because it assumes that you are watching/taking/ in a linear fashion as in ABCDEF, rather than jumping around (which is why online learning was created in the first place, because ILT is linear), and that everyone has the same learning style or learns the same way and can acquire the information in that specific time frame.  In other words, some vendors say our content is micro and each piece is three minutes long. Others pull the spin, and say it is micro, but the module is 45 minutes long with 15 sub-modules or topics or chapters or sadly “lessons”  – as though you are in a schoolhouse from 1892. Anyway, those chapters range from five to 10 minutes – you know, micro.   As such, micro-learning is not an award category.
  • Micro-Learning by the way, doesn’t mean it is any good, just “short” as defined by the content provider. 
  • Attachments – Some off the shelf providers include an attachment with their content (in whatever format they have), others do not.  Again, an attachment may be of value or it may not.  Never make your decision on buying content based on whether the content comes with it or not.  A lot of it isn’t instructional design quality, and many is something you could create on your own – actually, most of it is. 
  • With vendors pushing micro-content you rarely see a TOC (Table of Contents), which is very doable, and honestly better for the learner.  But too many people think that the content has to be like YouTube or learning nuggets (a couple of pages of text) as though this will show them off as “edgy and with the times,” – respectfully I disagree.

Best of Content Awards

The debut received over 100 entrants, which is really quite nice, for just something brand new out of the gate. They had to provide several items, including catalog of content, types of content, what is their most popular titles/subjects of their content, where are their developers located (i.e. at the company, or on Mars, etc.), type of content they produce, and a few other items.

They had to provide two pieces of content in SCORM files.  A couple only provided them in AICC, which was converted, and some provided only MP4s or similar video formats.   The content could be any length, in any format – i.e. video, course approach, etc.  Ideally it should be in two different subject areas, but if the vendor only provides compliance for example, that was acceptable and did not put them at any disadvantage. 

The content they provided had to be representative of their catalog, but they could select any two they wanted.

We (the judges) looked at multiple sets of factors and judged each of them on a point scale 1 to 5, with one being the worst, and five being the best.

Obviously, the content had to be instructional design sound.  This played an important role, because if it isn’t, then you just have flashy content without if following any ID processes or approaches. Which is not effective for any learner.  

Judging Areas

  • Video – Only played a role – i.e. point wise if it was the content.  In other words, if it wasn’t a course that was purely video OR the course/content didn’t have any video parts in it, it was excluded in the judging criteria for that vendor.  This ensured that everything was equal.  So, if your course is 100% animation, you didn’t get a zero for video, it was just left blank by the judges and did not impact overall total score – since everything was weighted accordingly.
  • Animation  – Similar to above (i.e. video) piece. 
  • Audio Quality – Similar to above -in that if your course did not have any audio to it, you did not receive a zero.  Nowadays most of the 3rd party content has an audio overlay or what is referred to as a V/O (voice-over).

One that is very important, but way too many vendors lacked it…

  • ADA508 or similar (depending on the country, but most countries have it) support.  This by far, was the most disappointing. A lot of content our judges felt, lacked ADA508 support. It got to the point, that when calculating it was extracted and placed into a separate area, and not counted for/against any provider.  I will identify who we felt did the best at supporting ADA508 (and the UK for example, follows the ADA508 similar with their own term).  I created a course in 2002, that supported ADA508, trust me, it isn’t that difficult.

Played a bigger role than the above categories – when weighted

  • Usefulness – How useful would this be to the learner?  Tied clearly to the subject/topic at hand.  Honestly, this should be a top priority to anyone looking at content.  Just because it might be game like, doesn’t mean it will be useful to them for say upskilling or an acquirement of knowledge.
  • Interactivity (Quality and Usability)- This should be a mainstay in every piece of content anyone wants to buy. Without interactiviy, you have boring static content.  This isn’t something new, people were doing it with CBT in the 90s, and even WBT in the late 90s.  Learners of all ages want interactivity, otherwise just scan a piece of notebook paper with some text and give it to them. 
  • Engagment – Another mainstay and a must when you are looking at buying content. It has to be targeted to your audience, has to be compelling to engage the learner in wanting to acquire, retain, and snythesis the information.  Every piece of content IMO, should include a real-world scenario that applies to what people are learning – this will push the higher level of engagement, interactivity and usefulness.  Seriously, do not buy content that does not hit the trifecta here, but I know most people will just ignore – and as a result will complain later on, that their learners are not going back and re-taking it, or even taking it.  Oh, and with Compliance you can have the trifecta (UIE). 
  • Scenarios (if applicable) – Seriously, how hard is it to come up with one real world scenario that someone can take what they are learning and apply it to a situational experience?  I did it back in 2002. Trust me, it is nost a challenge.  Yet, so many providers do not offer it.  I will hear no one is asking for it, which is utter nonsense. I thought you were the expert in effective instructional design, not them, and who just wants an assessment at the end of each chapter?  That tells me nothing, expect you know how to memorize or guess.

Two other Essentials that were weighted higher

Description – Did the content include a description?  This you would think would be a no-brainer, but guess what, a lot of providers didn’t have one.  How would I know what this is about? Rely on the title?

Objectives – This is ID and honestly learning and training 101. Heck, even in education this is standard. Again, many vendors did not have it. Weird.

What was excluded

  • Assessments – Not relevant here, I know I will get a lot of pushback, but again, see the memorize or guess angle.  We in L&D and Training spend way too much time and effort pushing assessment, when there is so much data/research out there that shows it is not effective in learning synthesis, that people can fail due to anxiety, that there is no correlation between doing well on a test and actually retaining for a long period and thus synthesize. I never in all my years of providing online training (e-learning) ever had an assessment at the end of a course. What did I have? Scenarios.

Even with certification content, you do not need to do an assessment, but I know most folks do. That’s your choice, I just respectfully disagree.

And Now the Awards

BEST Off the Shelf Content (OVERALL)

Seven Dimensions – Go to Video/Courses in the header.

  • Scored high across the board, with usefulness, engagement, and interactivity doing well. Every course has objectives and a description. Even with video they did a very nice job. For attachment fans, the content we viewed had it and was effective. Likely many will not know the, showing proof that there is amazing content out there. Oh, and they won another award (to be noted shortly).

Intellezy – They presented two courses in technology, both of which were very good. In fact so good, they won the “best content for Technology”.

Scored high across the board, especially with usefulness. One judge scored them the highest across the board with seven dimensions just slightly behind them, two other judges gave them lower scores due to interactivty and engagment which fell a little short in their opinion. Still we all found them to be worthy and deserving of #2 in the Best Content Overall Awards. They are very good for tech-focused content.

Video Arts Another strong across the board, with judges giving them perfect marks for video content, scenarios and quality.

Usefulness and Interactivity was a slight point below (4/5) and objectives/description a slight point or two.

The Top 10 – Best Content Overall

  1. Seven Dimensions
  2. Intellezy
  3. Video Arts
  4. Cegos
  5. Traliant
  6. ej4
  7. Bigger Brains
  8. Skill Pill
  9. SAP Litmos
  10. Vado

Subject/Topic Award Winners

And the winner is

Traliant – Outstanding. Strong in Usefulness (okay the best for compliance), outstanding in scenarios, engagement and quality. Objectives quite good. We had numerous participants for Compliance, Traliant crushed them all.

And the winner is

Intellezy – Another win. As noted earlier, their technology content just rocked.

And the winner is, wait.. winners – That’s right a TIE

Skill Pill – Very good content in the business skills area, with a different way than you will find with other providers. They include workbooks, flash cards, and other supporting materials as part of their course and content design.

Seven Dimensions – You see that correctly, the overall Best Content Award Winner for 2020, achieves another award with their business skills content, which the judges found with one course could easily slide into personal and professional development (depending on your how you view it, yourselves). But at the end of the day, the judges felt it was more suited for business skills.

And the winner is…wait – Another TIE

Cegos – Only one of five vendors who achieved a perfect score with video, objectives were fantastic, interactivity, usefulness and quality were exceptional.

Video Arts – Two-time award winner. The #3 best overall content winner, scored perfect with their video content, outstanding with the content tied around personal and professional development, and just did a very nice job.

And the winner is…

Biz Library – Interactivity, Scenarios and Usefulness including quality is where they really shine. Video is quite good.

This category is based on four key components

  • Video – Quality, content, overall experience, talent level (if applicable) – Played the biggest role here, obviously
  • Usefulness
  • Scenarios
  • Interactivity a level that can exist in video, more so than you might think

The winner is

Seven Dimensions – Yes, a three-time award winner.

A very close second (by one point) is Intellezy and then only three points behind them is Video Arts.

ADA 

While there isn’t any award given out to the vendor whose content achieved excellence with ADA508 (and similar on other countries) in their content, here are the three providers who scored the highest in the category.

  • SAP Litmos
  • Vado
  • Skill Pill 

Bottom Line

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you for participating in this year’s debut awards. 

The Judges for the competition are Peter Phillips, former CEO of Unicorn Training, a pioneer in instructional design for WBT, and even with CBT;  he is currently CEO of Amuzo, a game-based learning company (makes awesome content).   Spencer Thorton, SVP of Curation for Open Sesame, and yours truly, Craig Weiss.

Lastly, a huge thank you to D2L for setting up a sandbox and helping us in so many ways, so that we could test the content using an LMS, to ensure that it was fair to everyone. 

Note:  Two vendors of note who declined to submit (they were offered to do so) were Skillsoft and LinkedIn Learning.  IMO and that even of the Judges, Skillsoft would not have even hit the top five. Most of the content is dated, linear in style and format, and sadly, underwhelming. They do create new content, but the quality, seems to have dropped off.  LinkedIn Learning, on the other hand – and this is just my perspective because I see the content a lot, and have it as part of my review (coming in early Sept of the system) is mainly made up of the Lynda.com content, which to me, just isn’t that good. Some of the newer stuff is better, but still, it has challenges.  

One vendor, that I still like for compliance is the Access Group.  There were some challenges that befell their entry, which is why they were not one of the finalists in the end.  But, because I see their content all the time, I do believe they would have been a strong contender in the compliance field.  That said, Traliant still would be the winner.  Their content is just better. 

Finally, I never charge a fee for an award submission nor application to do so.  This applies to all my awards including those for learning systems (in case you are wondering). 

E-Learning 24/7

Introducing Career Learning Paths: Learn the skills to advance your career with confidence

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Introducing Career Learning Paths: Learn the skills to advance your career with confidence

By Janani Subramanian, Senior Product Manager, Coursera

Embarking on a new chapter of your career journey can be a powerful emotional experience. You may feel excitement and anticipation, but also anxiety and stress. Whether you’re looking for your first job, pursuing a promotion, or contemplating a mid-career switch to a new field, there are always unknowns to manage. At a time when COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the employment landscape, this uncertainty can seem even more challenging.

Today, Coursera is launching Career Learning Paths, a free online resource to help you find the learning content you need to reach your career goals. Each path shows you a progression of job roles—from entry-level to experienced professional—for an in-demand field, details the skills necessary for career success in that field, and maps these skills to the relevant learning programs on Coursera. With Career Learning Paths, you can learn with confidence, knowing you’re on the right track to advance your career.

Career Learning Paths for six high-growth fields are now available: Digital Marketing, Agile Project Management, Network Engineering, Data Engineering, Design, and Data Science. Coursera’s content strategy experts chose these fields for their steady growth and competitive wages, and because the skills required for success in these fields can be learned online.

As an example, consider the field of Agile Project Management. Roles in this field—such as IT project manager—are at low risk of automation and have a median salary of $88,000 for entry-level roles. In programs like Atlassian’s Agile with Atlassian Jira stand-alone course and UC Irvine’s Project Management Professional Certificate, you can learn the skills to launch and advance your project management career.

How can you start using Career Learning Paths? Let’s say you’re interested in launching a data science career. You can begin by exploring the Data Science Career Learning Path, where you’ll find a general description of the field and expert-curated content for beginner, intermediate, and advanced data science professionals. The curated content provides a range of learning programs, from Guided Projects that can be completed in under two hours to full-fledged certificate and degree programs that offer more in-depth training in the field. Examples include the Data Science Professional Certificate from IBM or Imperial College London’s Master of Machine Learning and Data Science. Once you’ve identified the right level and type of content for your goals, you can begin learning. 

In the coming months, we’ll continue to introduce more Career Learning Paths across other growing fields. Our goal is to support you every step of the way as you pursue your goals, by providing the world-class learning resources that are right for your unique career journey.

Discover the next step in your career by exploring Career Learning Paths today: 

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Karar Muhammad: “There is no life without knowledge.”

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Karar Muhammad: “There is no life without knowledge.”

“My name is Karar Muhammad and I am a teacher. I was born in Babil Governorate, Iraq in 1997. I have a BA in Basic Education and History.”

How did you learn about Alison?

I learned about Alison by searching the internet for an educational specialist that produced courses in education.

What was your first course on Alison, and why did you choose it?

My first course with Alison was the Diploma in Teaching Skills for Educators. I chose this course because I am a recent graduate from an educational college and I wanted to strengthen my teaching skills. I completed the course with a mark of 83%. It was a great experience of e-learning.

How have Alison courses affected your career?

I always attach my diploma from Alison to my cv when applying to community schools for a position.

What’s your favourite way to relax from studying?

I like sitting at home and learning from a distance with a snack and some juice.

 

Where are you working at the moment?

I don’t have a job right now, but soon I will get a job working in a private school, God willing.

What’s next for you, in terms of education or work?

I aspire to complete my academic career in the future with a master’s degree in teaching methods. I always aspire for more and I don’t stop seeking knowledge. As long as we are alive, there is no life without knowledge, and with knowledge, nations rise.

If you could learn absolutely anything in the world from an Alison course, what would it be?

I would like to take more training courses for teachers, preferably on teaching methods.

What would you say to someone if they asked you about Alison? Would you recommend it and why?

Alison is one of the best educational platforms in the world. What distinguishes it is that it’s free and available in all countries. I wish them good luck. I have benefited a lot in my studies at Alison, and my skills have increased. I think it’s an important resource for any intellectual who wants to develop their skills and experience, in any of the sciences or humanities. Alison has many courses and diplomas and offers a valuable opportunity to study and obtain accredited certificates.

Career and internship advice for students from the Codecademy team

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Career and internship advice for students from the Codecademy team

Choosing a career path while in college can feel like a huge undertaking. You may still be trying to decide what exactly you want to study, trying to navigate finding an internship, or figuring out what type of job you want to get when you graduate.

Because hindsight is 20/20, we interviewed five members of the Codecademy team who are living their career dreams to find out what advice they’d give to their former selves, when they were in college. We’ve gathered their wisdom here for you on everything from landing an internship to deciding what you want to do after graduation. Read on for their advice!

Meet the team

Before we get into the questions and advice, we thought we’d give a quick introduction to the team — how they got their start and what they’re working on now.

Casey, Software Engineer: Casey got started in software engineering by coding as a hobby throughout college and an early job in customer support. Cut to 2020 where he has joined the team at Codecademy as a front-end developer. He loves to work on projects that lie in the intersection of technology and the creative arts.

Kip, Engineering Manager: Kip first started coding at the age of 8 (in order to subvert a household ban on video games) and they’ve been hooked ever since. Though they started programming primarily for themselves, they realized quickly that their true passions lay in building systems where others could realize their full potential, either as creatives or professionals.

Josh, Frontend Developer: Josh has been programming for a few years at this point, but still feels like everything is new and fresh and exciting. He started off with low-level C++ development but quickly found a true love in interactive web development and improving tools for other frontend developers.

Tracy, Data Scientist: Tracy spent several years gaining exposure to a variety of industries and fields, including psychology, coding, and management. After finding her passion for data science, she invested her time into gaining the skills needed to transition from the Product to Data Science Team at Codecademy.

Catherine, Head of Data Science: Catherine is Head of Data Science at Codecademy, where she has spent the last 3 years building and growing a team of data scientists. She has a background applying data science tools and concepts to understand patterns in consumer behavior. Catherine has her bachelor’s degree in the social sciences (Sociology) and was among the first in her family to graduate from college.

Career and internship advice

Now that you’ve met the team, find out how they answered some of the most frequently asked questions about choosing a career path, finding an internship, and more.

Q: How do I know what I want to do when I graduate?

Kip: Try lots of things, even if they don’t seem like they’d be all that relevant. I went into school expecting to be a game developer and realized by the end that what I actually love doing is sharing how exciting coding is.

Josh: You’ll find it if you keep applying yourself to the things you love. Computers, programming, all that stuff — if you enjoy it and it can make money, don’t worry about whether you’re good enough. Keep learning.

Catherine: You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do when you graduate. Just figure out what you don’t like to do and slowly cross things off that list! Back in college, I took a lot of different courses to help me narrow down what I liked and what I didn’t like.

Q: How do I get experience to put on my resume before I get an offer?

Casey: Try to get involved in open-source projects or mentorship programs through your school. Most importantly, build skills by working on projects that are fun for you in your spare time.

Josh: Projects! Projects! Projects! Regular classwork is a great experience source, but it’s shared by all your classmates. Do as much as you can to put yourself ahead and get even more experience.

Tracy: If you have previous work experience (e.g., in a summer job), there are still several transferable skills, such as things like teamwork/building, communication, organization, etc. Outside of previous work experience, it’s helpful to volunteer/participate in relevant organizations, take online courses, and create a portfolio of projects. These can also be hosted on a personal website.

Catherine: Were you a teaching assistant? Did you have some type of leadership role (paid or unpaid)? Do you have knowledge of specific tools, programming languages, or domains? Any projects, volunteer work, or part-time jobs? Put all of that on your resume! Any experience you have is valuable.

Q: How do I represent what I learned at school or at Codecademy on my resume?

Casey: Pick the two or three achievements you’re most proud of and list concisely (think bullet points not paragraphs) what you learned and how you contributed to their successful completion. Generally, project-based work is best to include because it demonstrates your ability to integrate what you’ve learned. It’s important to be concise because oftentimes recruiters are reading a lot of resumes and it makes their job easier when they can quickly find the qualities that make you shine.

Kip: You can include specific courses within the education section of your resume, or call them out in accomplishments / projects.

Catherine: Try to tie what you learned to real-world applications. When I first graduated, I focused on demonstrating my knowledge of building the fanciest models and data science applications. The reality is most entry level jobs (and even mid-level and senior jobs) want to know that you have the foundational un-sexy skills too: data cleaning, communication, time management, pragmatism. Focus on core skills and understanding real-world applications of the work you’ve done. Try to apply what you learned at school or at Codecademy to real-world problems through hands-on projects.

Q: How do I find internships to apply to?

Casey: Start by finding companies you’re especially interested in and applying directly. Feel free to message hiring teams through their contact channels (forms, social media, etc) and ask what makes a strong internship application. It rarely hurts to apply. Even if you don’t meet the criteria for one hiring cycle, it puts you on a company’s radar and gives you a chance to demonstrate your growth in the next hiring cycle. Also check out resources at your school or sites like Glassdoor.

Kip: I recommend applying to companies that you’d be excited to work for, even if they don’t have official internship offerings. There’s a lot of rejection, but there’s also a lot of opportunities to connect with people who otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to meet you.

Tracy: In addition to searching online at Job Boards, some ways to find internships include reaching out to your network on LinkedIn or within the Community for referrals, participating in online or in-person meetups and speaking with company representatives about your experience or interests. If you have specific places in mind you’d like to work, try reaching out directly to individuals within the company expressing your interest, background, and skillset, and seeing if there are opportunities now or in the future.

Q: How do I ace an internship interview?

Casey: Learn about the company and be prepared to talk about why you’d be excited to intern there. Polish up any projects you’d like to show off and be ready to discuss them.

Kip: Definitely study up on algorithms and data structures; most companies will run a pretty standard engineering interview for their internship programs. Have a set of projects to talk about, especially ones in group settings.

Josh: Practice interviewing the way the companies you’re applying to will interview you. Hopefully that’ll be real-world projects, collaborating with others, and general personal skills… but for many that’s nitpicky data structures and algorithms questions.

Tracy: In addition to the standard measures of writing and reviewing your resume, cleaning up LinkedIn, and preparing technically, it’s helpful to prepare for interviews for internships by (1) having your “story” (i.e., a 30-second “pitch” about yourself – your background, interests, motivations, goals), (2) researching typical questions that come up in an interview and preparing answers, (3) researching the company itself to showcase your interest, and (4) being confident – remind yourself along the way that you have the skillset and will land an internship.

Catherine: Learn practical skills. Make sure you can demonstrate that knowledge in interviews. For data jobs, this means learning SQL or about data cleaning concepts. It also means practicing effective communication and time management.

Q: What Codecademy courses would be most useful to take?

Kip: We have a new set of interview prep courses that can help you study the types of problems that come up in interviews. Other than that, explore what you’re interested in and be willing to take a chance on switching gears.

Josh: Depends on your area of interest!

Tracy: It depends on what you’re interested in. If you’re not sure, try out a few courses or a Career Path in Web Development and in Data Science.

Q: Any other advice that you would give to yourself in college, knowing what you know now?

Casey: Don’t measure your success against others, don’t stress too much, and ask for help when you need it.

Kip: It’s not only okay to make mistakes, but encouraged; you learn so much from the mistakes you make and become better for it.

Josh: Don’t forget to save time for yourself. Burnout is real.

Tracy: It always works out how it should, and it’s OK to view the next several years as an exploratory time to figure out what interests and motivates you.

Catherine: It gets easier! It took me over 200+ applications to find my first full-time job after college. My second job took 100+ applications. My third job took 5 applications. Know that there will be ups and downs, but also that work and school do not define your life. You are more than just your grades and your job title.

What’s next?

Just like Catherine says, while thinking about the future may feel a little overwhelming, “it gets easier.” And one of the things that helps a lot is connecting with and learning from other people — whether it’s the Codecademy team or your fellow Codecademy learners.

If you have more questions or are just interested in hearing about the experiences of others learning to code, join our community. Ask questions, get support, teach, and learn something new. We hope to see you there!

Welcome to CS101: A livestreamed introduction to Computer Science

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Welcome to CS101: A livestreamed introduction to Computer Science

Join us for a semester-long intro to Computer Science! Over the course of the next 8 weeks, we’ll be hosting a live web series covering fundamental topics in Computer Science.

Our Curriculum Developers will introduce you to CS fundamentals, including how to think like a programmer. You’ll solve coding challenges and learn how to build basic programs in Python. We’ll be streaming live on Tuesdays at 1pm ET from September 1 through October 20.

The content of CS101 Live is similar to what you might see in the first few months of your first college semester in Computer Science. We’ll be working in Python. However, the content we’ll cover is fundamental to almost every programming language.

How to Watch

Every Tuesday at 1pm ET, we’ll be streaming our weekly session to YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook. These sessions will run for approximately 1 hour.

You can find more information about each week’s session on the Codecademy Events Page. Register through the individual event pages to get an email reminder and mark it on your calendar so you don’t forget. We’ll also be updating this blog post with each week’s session after it happens so you can catch up on anything you miss.

Syllabus

Each week, we will be completing a module from our CS101 Course. This is a Pro course that has been specifically created for this livestream series. The stream will be free to everyone, but to code along with us, you’ll have to be a Pro member. We also recommend looking through the module ahead of time so you can come to the stream prepared to ask questions.

Here’s what we’ll be covering each week. Click the “Register” links to sign up.

CS101 #1: Syntax and Variables

September 1, 2020 at 1pm EST
REGISTER

Let’s get started by writing our first program in Python. In this session, we’ll cover basic Python Syntax and Variables. We’ll also talk about Python in general. What is it used for? How is it similar and different from other programming languages? What does it mean to think like a programmer?

CS101 #2: Functions

September 8, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

Now that we can write basic Python programs, we’ll learn how to structure our code using functions. We will explore what functions are used for, what it means to give functions arguments, and why you might want to return a value from a function. We’ll end the session by going through some function-based code challenges.

CS101 #3: Control Flow

September 15, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

Most programs branch in some way – if the user chooses Option 1, they’ll be met with Result A. If they choose Option 2, they’ll see Result B. We’ll explore how to make these branching paths by using conditionals in Python. Once again, we’ll finish this session by presenting a handful of code challenges using conditionals.

CS101 #4: Lists

September 22, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

So far our programs have used a handful of variables to store data. But what if we wanted to write a program that used even more data? Creating hundreds (or even thousands) of variables would be a chore! In this session, we’ll explore how to use lists to make our programs even bigger.

CS101 #5: Loops

September 29, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

Now that we can create programs using lists that store lots of data, we want to actually use that data! By learning how to write loops in Python, we can quickly write code that works with thousands of pieces of data. Our programs are starting to be more and more complicated. We’ll test our knowledge on everything we’ve learned by trying some coding challenges at the end of the day.

CS101 #6: Strings

October 6, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

Up until now, most of our programs have only been using numbers. Let’s start to think about how we can incorporate text into our programs using Strings! This is our first exploration into a vastly different data type in Python.

CS101 #7: Dictionaries

October 13, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

Between Integers, Strings, and Lists, we’ve seen a handful of data types in Python. In this session, we’ll explore Dictionaries. Dictionaries are a powerful data type that can incorporate everything we’ve learned so far. We’ll explore why we might want to use dictionaries and how they differ from Lists.

CS101 #8: Classes

October 20, 2020 at 1pm ET
REGISTER

In our final session, we’ll introduce you to the world of Object-Oriented Programming. We’ve spent 7 weeks working with data structures that come built-in to Python by default. We’ll now discover how to build and use our own data structures by learning about Classes and Objects.

Front end vs. back end: Where should you start?

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Front end vs. back end: Where should you start?

You may have heard the phrases “front end” and “back end” being tossed around in reference to programming before. If you are new to programming, you might be wondering what these terms actually mean.

At a high level, the “front end” is what visitors or users will see when they interact with a program, application, or platform. The “back end” is where programmers create processes to make those interactions run smoothly.

When working on a new project, software developers build programs from the ground up. Most applications are powered by both front-end and back-end programming languages.

But the question remains: Should you start learning a front-end or a back-end language first? In this article, we’ll explain the difference between front and and back end development in more detail (and we’ll take a look at full-stack development, too), to help you decide where to get started.

What is front-end development?

Front-end development is all about designing the surface level of applications by changing their style and appearance to meet the needs of the user or customer. To put it simply, the front end manages the parts of websites and applications that users actually see and interact with to perform certain tasks.

When people think of the front end, they usually associate it with the style of a website — such as the page layout, menus, and images. Front-end developers are responsible for updating company pages, customizing layouts, adding animated elements, ensuring accessibility, and more.

Check out the following video and read on to find out more about how to get started with front end development.

Front end programming languages

What languages are used in front end development? Generally, the front end uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

HTML is the structural backbone of a site, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the custom skin that defines the style of the visuals, and JavaScript affects how elements on the page move around.

You’ll also want to familiarize yourself with some front-end frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular. Frameworks are specialized technologies that help you set up applications. Rather than writing everything from scratch, frameworks allow you to speed up the development process.

Getting started with front-end development

Interested in learning more about front-end development? We suggest picking up the fundamentals of web development with HTML/CSS as they’re the foundation of all web pages. You could start with the Learn how to build websites Skill Path.

Even if your ultimate goal is to become a back end or full stack developer, experienced developers might recommend that you master front-end development first. By understanding how the front end of websites are built, you can identify ways to make applications run more smoothly behind the scenes. If you want to learn about it all, check out our Web Development Career Path.

What is back-end development?

Back-end development dictates how programs function by creating hidden processes that run behind the scenes. Still, there is a lot more to the back end than just controlling the overall functionality of an app or a website. It also details what happens on the server and database.

What developers call the back end is what’s operating in the background, unseen without peering into the source code. Think of the front end as a menu at a restaurant: It allows you to order something from a list of items that are brought out from another room.

Think of the back end as the kitchen. It acts as a hidden compartment where the chef is preparing your food. There needs to be a way for the customer to communicate with the chef, so the waiter acts as the middleman by sending orders to the kitchen. The back-end developer is the waiter who handles the website database using a back end, or server-side, language.

Back end programming languages

There are a whole variety of programming languages used on the back end. Here at Codecademy, we teach back-end development primarily in JavaScript, Python, and C#. When you’re starting out, we recommend focusing on JavaScript, as having a single language for front end and back end makes for an easier path towards strong full stack development.

Interested in learning about back-end frameworks? Check out Express, Flask, and asp.net. We also recommend checking out this great MDN Web Docs article on server-side frameworks and how to select one.

What is full-stack development?

Full-stack development refers to a combination of front-end and back-end development. The programmer will be interacting with both client and server-side functions. A full-stack developer is a hybrid of those two roles, well-versed in multiple areas and capable of designing entire websites or applications from scratch.

Full-stack developers wear many different hats. Their versatility allows them to contribute to any stage of the software development cycle. One advantage of being a full-stack developer is that you’ll be able to recognize what makes a website intuitive and easy to use, as well as how to build it most effectively.

Getting started

If you’re interested in learning how to design interactive websites, you can get a feel for both the front end and the back end by taking our Web Development Career Path.

This path starts out by teaching you the basics of HTML and then progresses quickly through CSS, JavaScript, and React. By the end, you should have a good idea of what interests you most so you can decide whether front-end, back-end, or full-stack development is for you!

60 Talented Educators Join The New York Times Teaching Project

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60 Talented Educators Join The New York Times Teaching Project

In July, we officially welcomed a distinguished group of 60 educators to The New York Times Teaching Project. Chosen from hundreds of applicants and representing 29 states, these teachers are passionate about bringing the mission of The Times — helping people understand the world through on-the-ground, expert and deeply reported independent journalism — to their school communities.

When it became clear that our original plans to meet in person at The Times’s headquarters in Manhattan had to become, instead, a three-day virtual institute, we realized that though the format would change, our goals would not. Across several time zones, and over Zoom, Google Classroom, FlipGrid and Padlet, we connected all 60 educators to The Times, to our staff and to one another; invited them to share their own experiences and expertise; and helped them begin to develop curriculum projects that will be meaningful to their communities this school year.

Here are just a few of the things we did together:

  • We built community with regular interactive icebreakers. For example, we began the first day with breakout room “speed-dating” that used Learning Network writing prompts (like this one about your dream house, this one about home cooking, this one on accents and identity, and this one recalling your wildest childhood story) to allow participants to get to know each other, one pair at a time.

  • Teachers shared their expertise with one another by developing and moderating Edcamp-style sessions, focusing on subjects they’d previously explored or wanted to learn more about — including teaching STEM subjects with Times resources and using the 1619 Project to study the history of slavery and its legacy.

  • We offered behind-the-scenes looks at the work of Times journalists by hosting two panel discussions, one on Covid-19 and the other on the Black Lives Matter protests. Journalists, photographers and editors who covered these stories explained how pieces like “How Black Lives Matter Reached Every Corner of America” and “12 Fraught Hours With E.M.T.s in a City Under Siege” were reported, edited and created, as the teachers asked questions and, later, discussed the implications of what they had learned for their own classrooms.

  • The institute culminated in small-group pitch presentations — inspired by The Times’s front page meetings — during which educators shared their 2020-21 project ideas with their colleagues for feedback, advice and recommendations on next steps.

Now these educators will spend the next year working together to develop the projects they began in July; supporting each other through what promises to be a tricky year of teaching and learning amid a pandemic; and, of course, continuing to experiment with ways to include journalism in general, and Times resources in particular, in their work.

Below, a list of participants, their subject areas and schools — but also please click on the PDF below to find a short description of each curriculum project. As this school year continues, we hope to tell you more about each of them — and show you how you can adapt the projects you like for your own classroom.

Sohum Bhatt | Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School, San Francisco

Keshia Williams | Lee High School, Montgomery, Ala.

Alina Acosta | Manual High School, Denver

Avery Pickford | Lick-Wilmerding High School, San Francisco

Alyssa Anderson | Burlington City High School, Burlington, N.J.

Pedro Berlanga | Akins High School, Austin, Texas

Judi Freeman | Boston Latin School, Boston

Sarah Garton | Great River School, St. Paul, Minn.

Kelli Kallens | Montgomery Upper Middle School, Skillman, N.J.

Scott Kallens | Hillsborough High School, Hillsborough, N.J.

Sam Kohn | Campus International High School, Cleveland

Michael Kokozos | Gulliver Prep, Pinecrest, Fla.

Andrew Kollen | Irvington High School, Fremont, Calif.

Tatianna McKinney | Trinity Preparatory School, Winter Park, Fla.

Mary Reid Munford | The New School, Atlanta

Lena Papagiannis | John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, Boston

Erin Pinsky | Joel Barlow High School, Redding, Conn.

Joel Snyder | Animo Pat Brown Charter High School, Los Angeles

Nicholas Stone | Millennium High School, New York, N.Y.

Jen Wilkosz |Berlin High School, Berlin, Conn.

Debbie Domingues-Murphy | City Charter High School, Pittsburgh

Gabriel Graña | Smith Middle School, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Jenny Stirrat | Northeast Early College High School, Austin, Texas

Bryan Milz | West De Pere Middle School, De Pere, Wis.

Kate Plows | Strath Haven High School, Wallingford, Pa.

Donna Schou | Lynnwood High School, Bothell, Wash.

Jennifer Carlson | Glen Burnie High School, Glen Burnie, Md.

Amy Chappuis | Clayton High School, St. Louis

Sabrina Alicea | Daniel R. Cameron Elementary, Chicago

Donna Amit-Cubbage | J.R Masterman School, Philadelphia

Cassie Bentley-Bradshaw | Reynoldsburg High School HS2 Stem Academy, Columbus, Ohio

Blake Bockholt | Northern Utah Academy for Math, Engineering & Science, Layton, Utah

Diane Boyd | Mesa Verde High School, Citrus Heights, Calif.

Kim Butterfield | Central High School, La Crosse, Wis.

Jennifer Coleman | Hewitt-Trussville High School, Trussville, Ala.

Claudia Felske | East Troy High School, East Troy, Wis.

Christa Forster | The Kinkaid School, Houston

Kelsey Francis | Saranac Lake High School, Saranac Lake, N.Y.

Dina Giannakopoulos | Barrington High School, Barrington, Ill.

Karen Gold | The Governor’s Academy, Byfield, Mass.

Kathryn Gullo | North Hollywood High School High Gifted Magnet, North Hollywood, Calif.

Kristina Harvey | Wilton High School, Wilton, Conn.

Jessica Hunter | Syosset High School, Long Island, N.Y.

Claudine James | Malvern Middle School, Malvern, Ark.

Mary Beth Jordan | Mamaroneck High School, Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Jessica Kirkland |Park View High School, Sterling, Va.

Ben Klash | Beaverton High School, Beaverton, Ore.

Kristin Lawlor | The Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx, Bronx, N.Y.

Hannah Lipman | Newburg Middle School, Louisville, Ky.

Tessa Maglio | South Milwaukee High School, South Milwaukee, Wis.

Tiffany Mathes| Beaverton High School, Beaverton, Ore.

Kathleen Mills | Bloomington High School South, Bloomington, Ind.

Sharon Murchie | Bath High School, Bath, Mich.

Michael Potter | Hilton High School, Hilton, N.Y.

Jeanette Price | Columbia Falls High School, Columbia Falls, Mont.

Kendra Radcliff | Druid Hills High School, Atlanta

Jodi Ramos | Stevenson Middle School, San Antonio

Teresa Scollon | TBAISD Career-Tech Center, Traverse City, Mich.

Rebecca Temple | Madison Central High School, Madison, Miss.

Meta Mikal Tews | Yukon Middle School, Yukon, Okla.

Summer Reading Contest Winner, Week 8: On ‘Why America Needs a Royal Family’

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Summer Reading Contest Winner, Week 8: On ‘Why America Needs a Royal Family’

The royal family’s private life often intersects with their royal duties. Similarly in America, the extracurricular activities of politicians often overlap with their political affairs as well. Seeing this, writer Jennifer Weiner asserts that America needs its own “royal family,” separately-elected representatives who can perform ceremonial tasks while representing America’s overall values.

Ms. Weiner juxtaposes the royal family’s personal affairs with a soap opera, stating that, “The problem with a real-time soap opera … is that very few people are equipped to be its stars.” She appeals to a sense of familiarity by comparing the lives of the royal family and, in larger part, politicians to television melodrama, showing the reader that these matters relate.

I largely disagree with her argument and would like to propose one of my own: We need to separate the ribbon-cutting and the baby-kissing from politics and remove them entirely. Even now, politicians’ personal affairs distract from more important political matters, and an American “royal family” would only compound this issue.

What Ms. Weiner is asking for reminds me of a mascot, such as the Nesquik bunny — a hollow symbol of the values of carefree fun that the company supposedly has while its parent company, Nestle, commits child-trafficking and slavery in West Africa to harvest cocoa. America needs a lot of things, and a mascot isn’t one of them.

In alphabetical order by the writer’s first name.

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