In schools of the Kirov region earned Factory programmers
We launched a project for free training of schoolchildren in the basics of modern web development in the Node.js / React stack. While the project is working in pilot mode in several schools of the Kirov region, but we accept applications for connection from other regions - https://coderfactory.ru .
It all started three years ago as a small experiment in one of the local schools. We agreed with the management about conducting a free web development course for students who want to. The course lasted six months - the students performed tasks at home, and once a week at full-time classes at school they showed results and asked questions.
By the end of the school year, out of about 20 schoolchildren joined, only 4 remained - the rest gradually fell off due to the increasing complexity of the tasks. Moreover, only two managed to reach the last task. The conversion is not very high, but these guys are already working as web developers. One of them - Denis Malykh ( fines_unes ) - got his first real job less than a year after the end of the course. Later he joined us in the training project team.
Then we decided to launch this story for adults in the form of a summer camp in our Village. We made a small terrace for classes, organized catering, equipped bathrooms and places for tents and wrapped the course in a convenient web interface. They decided to call the camp “Khutorium”, and in the summer of 2018 about 50 people from different regions of the Russian Federation visited it.
The duration of stay in the camp ranged from 1 to 3 weeks. Of course, this is not very much, and we counted on the subsequent completion of the course online. But some guys were able to complete the course to the end even in this short period - of course, in a very intense intensive mode. Now they are already working.
Many volunteers could not come to the camp, and at their request, in September we launched an online training mode with consultations through Zoom.us - coderfactory.ru/course.
All the time we were haunted by the history of the schoolchildren’s education. After all, we managed to make sure that in a single school in the outback two people could quickly master the profession and earn good money without moving anywhere.
What happens if we stream it and scale across the country? If in every single school even 1-2 people will appear annually, who after a few months of practice grow to normal salaries for the “remote”? Could this have any significant impact on the economy and change the situation in rural settlements in the outback?
It seems to us that such a service should be free for schoolchildren - so that the possibility of early learning of the profession does not depend on the material condition of the family. But our course involves, including manual verification of tasks and in-person consultations with a mentor - we do not pull any meaningful scaling. We simply will not be able to hire mentors for our money and send them to every school.
Therefore, we came up with the idea - to act through computer science teachers. Informatics teachers are, as a rule, technically literate people with great potential. Due to circumstances, they are forced to teach school students Turbo Pascal and other newfangled technologies - but most understand the absurdity of the situation and would like to change something.
Naturally, informatics teachers first need to teach the actual development stack, so that they can help students. We spoke at a meeting of informatics teachers in the Slobodsky district of the Kirov region where the village is located, and offered to give out grants for free tuition in our course to all willing teachers.
With the condition that after graduation they will conduct weekly elective classes for their students in a similar format - that is, check assignments and help in case of difficulties. Naturally, for schoolchildren and for teachers, training on our part remains completely free.
Several teachers agreed with the proposal, and we have already conducted three classes in this way. For the time being, teachers more than live up to our expectations - they move along the course much faster than the average student. In the near future, we look forward to the launch of the first classes with schoolchildren in which the school teacher will play the role of mentor.
All classes are performed in our system coderfactory.ru . After completing the course, the teacher gets access to the mentor panel, in which he checks the code of the students attached to him and, if necessary, returns it for revision.
Situations when a student has difficulties and cannot cope with the task independently are resolved in face-to-face consultations. We believe that the optimal format for such consultations is a weekly meeting in a computer class lasting no more than one and a half hours.
Meetings are supposed to take the form of optional classes - so the teacher will be able to receive for them the standard hourly rate from the school.
We now have a hard time with resources, but we are ready to connect several interested schools from other regions, conduct online teacher training and help organize classes.
You can request a connection at www.coderfactory.ru/schools . After checking the application, your school will appear in the directory - ask interested students to connect to it. If there are more applications than we can pull, preference will be given to schools with the largest number of students who join.
Subscribe to our twitter @coderfactory_ru and telegram channel @coderfactory . We are ready to discuss any suggestions and comments in the comments to the article.
Prehistory
It all started three years ago as a small experiment in one of the local schools. We agreed with the management about conducting a free web development course for students who want to. The course lasted six months - the students performed tasks at home, and once a week at full-time classes at school they showed results and asked questions.
By the end of the school year, out of about 20 schoolchildren joined, only 4 remained - the rest gradually fell off due to the increasing complexity of the tasks. Moreover, only two managed to reach the last task. The conversion is not very high, but these guys are already working as web developers. One of them - Denis Malykh ( fines_unes ) - got his first real job less than a year after the end of the course. Later he joined us in the training project team.
After this experiment, the desire to go through the course and go into the profession of a web developer was expressed by several adult acquaintances. Adults better assimilate complex information, and may spend more time on training - so the results were slightly better - the period between the start of training and the first salary was reduced to 10 months.
Then we decided to launch this story for adults in the form of a summer camp in our Village. We made a small terrace for classes, organized catering, equipped bathrooms and places for tents and wrapped the course in a convenient web interface. They decided to call the camp “Khutorium”, and in the summer of 2018 about 50 people from different regions of the Russian Federation visited it.
The duration of stay in the camp ranged from 1 to 3 weeks. Of course, this is not very much, and we counted on the subsequent completion of the course online. But some guys were able to complete the course to the end even in this short period - of course, in a very intense intensive mode. Now they are already working.
Many volunteers could not come to the camp, and at their request, in September we launched an online training mode with consultations through Zoom.us - coderfactory.ru/course.
School format
All the time we were haunted by the history of the schoolchildren’s education. After all, we managed to make sure that in a single school in the outback two people could quickly master the profession and earn good money without moving anywhere.
What happens if we stream it and scale across the country? If in every single school even 1-2 people will appear annually, who after a few months of practice grow to normal salaries for the “remote”? Could this have any significant impact on the economy and change the situation in rural settlements in the outback?
It seems to us that such a service should be free for schoolchildren - so that the possibility of early learning of the profession does not depend on the material condition of the family. But our course involves, including manual verification of tasks and in-person consultations with a mentor - we do not pull any meaningful scaling. We simply will not be able to hire mentors for our money and send them to every school.
Solution - teachers of computer science
Therefore, we came up with the idea - to act through computer science teachers. Informatics teachers are, as a rule, technically literate people with great potential. Due to circumstances, they are forced to teach school students Turbo Pascal and other newfangled technologies - but most understand the absurdity of the situation and would like to change something.
Naturally, informatics teachers first need to teach the actual development stack, so that they can help students. We spoke at a meeting of informatics teachers in the Slobodsky district of the Kirov region where the village is located, and offered to give out grants for free tuition in our course to all willing teachers.
With the condition that after graduation they will conduct weekly elective classes for their students in a similar format - that is, check assignments and help in case of difficulties. Naturally, for schoolchildren and for teachers, training on our part remains completely free.
Several teachers agreed with the proposal, and we have already conducted three classes in this way. For the time being, teachers more than live up to our expectations - they move along the course much faster than the average student. In the near future, we look forward to the launch of the first classes with schoolchildren in which the school teacher will play the role of mentor.
Since full-time classes with teachers are held in the same lyceum, where this experiment began three years ago, an interesting situation has turned out. Classes are conducted by Denis Malykh, who completed the initial version of the course and later joined our team. Among the charges is his former computer science teacher. That is, three years later, the student and the teacher switched places.
Format and design classes
All classes are performed in our system coderfactory.ru . After completing the course, the teacher gets access to the mentor panel, in which he checks the code of the students attached to him and, if necessary, returns it for revision.
Situations when a student has difficulties and cannot cope with the task independently are resolved in face-to-face consultations. We believe that the optimal format for such consultations is a weekly meeting in a computer class lasting no more than one and a half hours.
Meetings are supposed to take the form of optional classes - so the teacher will be able to receive for them the standard hourly rate from the school.
Because of the idea with the schools, we had to change the name of Hutorium to “Factory of programmers” - in order not to embarrass the school administration once again with too defiant connotations
Connect new schools
We now have a hard time with resources, but we are ready to connect several interested schools from other regions, conduct online teacher training and help organize classes.
You can request a connection at www.coderfactory.ru/schools . After checking the application, your school will appear in the directory - ask interested students to connect to it. If there are more applications than we can pull, preference will be given to schools with the largest number of students who join.
Subscribe to our twitter @coderfactory_ru and telegram channel @coderfactory . We are ready to discuss any suggestions and comments in the comments to the article.