User talk:Kalevala/sandbox0

Original Research

The thoughts about tutorials and teaching that I am presenting here contain the original research of mine gathered from 35 years of teaching everything from remedial Algebra I to A.P. Computer Science. I believe these should inform the construction of this and all tutorial pages.

1. The student must succeed. It's a waste of everyone's time if the volunteer student abandons the effort or is intimidated into not even beginning the effort.
2. The tutorial must have a higher ulterior motive. In the case of the wiki abilities of the volunteer student, it should wet the appetite, motivate, peek the curiosity, engage, encourage and build confidence.
3. The tutorial must have a lower ulterior motive, to enroll and train a new generation editors. Some of the students may not be the best a writing scripts or programming in C++, a fact they quietly concede. None the less, they want to contribute and are able to follow clear and simple directions to produce a useful product.
4. Each student comes to the task with different experiences. Some are retired newspaper editors, some are seventh graders taking Algebra I. Some are thin skinned, some are bull-headed. Some are not native speakers, some are ToastMasters. We have to write to that broad audience by offering options within the tutorial.
5. The language has to be simple. With links to more in depth explanations and roll-over definitions. It should be free of jargon and acronyms. The page should allow the student to hide or show task lists as needed.
6. The explanation should be clear and thorough enough to assure success. It does not need to cover every possible exception with a word wall of true, but for now, extraneous information. This is particularly difficult for Wiki editors to wrap their heads around. Yes, your edit is true and on a normal page a perfect improvement, but that is not necessarily perfect for a tutorial. The criteria is different; your cheese has been moved. We are not writing a reference work, but something more like a text book. If you absolutely must make the point, go to the full documentation page to make certain it has been omitted from the Wiki, in which case include it there.
7. The tutorial needs follow-up feed back from the student. They can "pay for" their instruction by telling us how they experienced the lesson on the talk page. Nothing is more valuable to a good teacher than student complaints.
8. Until there are student complaints, we have to rely on each other to read through tutorials while pretending to be a naive student. Afterwards, we need to revert to our editorial role by pointing out confusing, wordy, overly technical or incorrect parts, and by suggesting improvements that further the tutorial purpose of the page. See number one above.

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Kalevala (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Your thoughts here: