Background
Hey Everyone! Python study group is a lot of fun. Let’s talk about ways we can make it even more engaging and useful!
Looking to think tank the current format, see if the are new things we can try (or not?? who’s to say?.. well, you!)
I (cpappas) have a few ideas and would love to bounce them around and see what people think as well. Would love to hear what neat things you might have in mind too.
Retrospective
Start doing | Stop doing | Keep doing |
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More Django topics (-Talia) +3 FP DK Database interactions/study (-Talia) +2 SC Allow for lurkers (-Talia) +2 More edX specific stuff +4 JS, FP, NS, LK Introduction to various useful python scripts we use here at edX Navigating databases/shells Devstack XBlocks Comprehensive theming **opportunities especially for new folk to learn about the edX environment and how python is used in it **idea: when you finish on working on something weird, do a PSG presentation/add the topic to the doc **bring more visibility to the idea that we shouldn’t be tied to previous PSG topics and topic styles **edx dev study group vs core python study group? **crowdsource topics ahead of time
Q&A sessions (“Bring your Django migrations questions” or the like) +2 NB CP Game Show style/jeopardy style study group JS, AD, CP Have the presenter share an outline/slides/etc. beforehand (maybe in the PSG wiki page) so people coming in late can follow along +1 Publish topics before the meeting +1 NS SC Python inner workings. Dissecting the python runtime interpreter Expand Ask Ned anything to More people. Collect questions/topics from people asynchronously. People must have head-scratchers from time to time. +3 NB Encourage/mandate audience participation (for example: “Simon, please come to the front of the class and type your solution into the terminal.”) Breakout groups? Debugging a python bug in edx code walkthrough sessions? SC Other python frameworks like Flask, Wagtail and etc. Vacation incentive for presenters But actually, find ways to bring in a larger group of presenters. AD Switch back to having PSG every 2 weeks NB Announce topics way ahead of time. FP, AD
| | ICEBREAKERS +3 Welcoming vibe +1 Encourage new employees. Hack, be part of engineering onboarding requirement! +1 I like when there are talks that are mostly running from the REPL or examples over slides. Presentations with code on them. +1 Encouraging “dumb” questions (in another venue, I challenged people to come up with the “dumbest” question, which started a good discussion) **Becca loves this^^ **have plants who are good at asking “dumb” questions **leave space for questions, make very clear that questions are welcomed and encouraged
A mix of practical and theoretical topics. +1
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Notes/Discussion
Let’s discuss our findings.
Some teams already encourage people to attend PSG on onboarding
Action items
Rebecca Graber (Deactivated) to make a poll in #dev about preferred formats (slides vs REPL)
Christopher Pappas and Rebecca Graber (Deactivated) and Ben Holt (Deactivated) to draw up “How to present at PSG”