How to be a Ruby Mentor

Presented at Ruby Nation 2013

We all know and love Ruby, but there is a large target audience of new programers who haven't discovered it yet. As experts in Ruby, we need to be able to mentor a new thriving generation of Ruby programmers. Most of us are familiar with the push the past few years for everyone to learn programming (even Mayor Bloomberg got in on the action!)

In this talk, Rachel will discuss how experienced developers can better approach newcomers and create a better community. The talk will cover the different motivations that novices come into her classroom with and how to best approach questions from rookies. With a better understanding of how people learn and how to teach, we have better tools to equip ourselves and as a side-effect, improve our own understanding of a programming concept through the fresh eyes of someone new to Ruby. The goal is to create a welcoming and thus more effective learning environment, be it in a classroom, the office, a meet up, or online.

Transcript

1. How to Be a RUBY MENTOR Rachel Ober @rachelober rachelober@gmail.com #rubymentor
2. DEFINITIONS
3. Who is a RUBYIST?
4. Someone who uses RUBY
5. What is MENTORING?
6. A SUPPORT System
7. RUBY
8. Learning Ruby TODAY
9. When YOU Learned RUBY
10. What were your RESOURCES?
11. Today’s RESOURCES
12. It is harder to “jump in” to Ruby/Rails now than it was a few years ago.
13. It’s like STARTING in the MIDDLE of a story
14. RVM IDE Xcode Gems Bundler Database Git The Install
15. Important to mentor today’s NEW RUBYISTS
16. Mentorship MYTHS
17. Mentees need to be YOUNGER than you
18. Mentees need to be YOUNGER than you MYTH
19. I need to be an EXPERT
20. I need to be an EXPERT MYTH
21. MENTORS need to be in their INDUSTRY
22. MENTORS need to be in their INDUSTRY MYTH
23. Mentorships only happen in a STRUCTURED SETTING
24. Mentorships only happen in a STRUCTURED SETTING MYTH
25. MENTORS do all the TEACHING
26. MENTORS do all the TEACHING MYTH
27. BENEFITS
28. Like Pair Programming, we benefit by learning from others.
29. Benefits for Students • Shorter time to “ramp up” • Learn best practices • Resource to bounce questions • Real world advice
30. Benefits for Mentors • Discover gaps in knowledge • Reexamine tools you use every day • Bringing new people in to the community • Paying it forward
31. Benefits for Companies • Helps recruitment • Overcome learning curves • Rejuvenates employees • Encourages personal growth
32. Prepare to MENTOR
33. Learn how to ANSWER QUESTIONS
34. Depends on whether they ALREADY KNOW how to program
35. COMPARE Ruby to another language they may know
36. INTERNALIZE the APIs
37. 1.8.6 vs 1.9
38. 3.times do puts "Hello, world!" end
40. DEMONSTRATE with them
41. Don’t just GIVE them the answer
42. Soon they won't have to rely on you and will know how to search for things by themselves.
43. Be EMPATHETIC
44. No PUT-DOWNS
45. “Assume that anyone you're teaching to has zero knowledge but infinite intelligence.” - Railsbridge Teacher Training
46. “I tried to make people enjoy programming and concentrate on the fun and creative part of programming when they use Ruby.” - Yukihiro Matsumoto
47. Finding MENTEES
48. STUDENTS
49. STUDENTS General Assembly gSchool Girl Develop It!
50. CO-WORKERS
51. CO-WORKERS Designers Project/Program Managers Marketing
52. COMMUNITY
53. COMMUNITY Meetups RailsBridge RailsGirls Summer of Code
54. I have a MENTEE what now?
55. Manage your mentee’s EXPECTATIONS
56. THINK BACK... What was it like to learn Ruby?
57. Which TOOLS RESOURCES PEOPLE were available to you?
58. What was it like to develop your FIRST PROGRAM
59. What were your CHALLENGES
60. What made you EXCITED
61. SHARE this with your mentee
62. Identify A GOAL
63. BREAK DOWN their goal into pieces
64. Figure out what is REALISTIC
65. “I’m a parent who wants to keep track of my kids’ activities but I don’t like the software available.”
66. “I have a business. I want to make a prototype so I can hire someone else to complete it.”
67. “I am a product manager and I want to have better conversations with developers.”
68. “I already program but I heard that Ruby is the new hotness.”
69. …And yes some want to get their first development job.
70. Tips for SUCCESS
71. MEET Regularly
72. Take NOTES
73. Define ATTAINABLE Goals
74. Hold them ACCOUNTABLE
75. Mentoring CO-WORKERS
76. INTERNSHIP
77. Help them set up their ENVIRONMENT
78. Show them the inner workings of YOUR APP
79. PAIR-PROGRAM
80. Walk them through the LIFE CYCLE
81. Get something to PRODUCTION
82. Welcome them to THE TEAM
83. Be their OLDER SIBLING
84. REMEMBER You were a newbie too!
85. ADD a new COOL PERSON to the COMMUNITY
86. We all love RUBY Share it with the world!
87. Make Ruby fun for others THANK YOU Rachel Ober @rachelober rachelober@gmail.com