Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
code4lib - What beginners teach us
Search
Selena Deckelmann
February 10, 2015
Technology
0
1.4k
code4lib - What beginners teach us
Keynote given on 2/10/2015 at the code4lib conference
Selena Deckelmann
February 10, 2015
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Selena Deckelmann
See All by Selena Deckelmann
Our privacy and the web
selenamarie
0
640
Postgres: an intro for new developers
selenamarie
0
190
Alembic and SQLAlchemy: sane schema management
selenamarie
0
240
What beginners teach us - New Relic FutureTalk
selenamarie
0
200
The Final Crontab
selenamarie
3
8.2k
Cost of 100% processing and crashstorage options for Socorro
selenamarie
0
160
Socorro, crash-stats.mozilla.com and Postgres
selenamarie
0
330
What beginners teach us - Passion Projects
selenamarie
6
2.2k
Sane Schema Management with Alembic
selenamarie
2
1.4k
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
OPENLOGI Company Profile for engineer
hr01
1
45k
東京大学「Agile-X」のFPGA AIデザインハッカソンを制したソニーのAI最適化
sony
0
140
頭部ふわふわ浄酔器
uyupun
0
230
Open Table Format (OTF) が必要になった背景とその機能 (2025.10.28)
simosako
2
370
【SORACOM UG Explorer 2025】さらなる10年へ ~ SORACOM MVC 発表
soracom
PRO
0
160
Oracle Database@Google Cloud:サービス概要のご紹介
oracle4engineer
PRO
0
380
AIの個性を理解し、指揮する
shoota
1
220
会社を支える Pythonという言語戦略 ~なぜPythonを主要言語にしているのか?~
curekoshimizu
3
880
ViteとTypeScriptのProject Referencesで 大規模モノレポのUIカタログのリリースサイクルを高速化する
shuta13
3
220
RemoteFunctionを使ったコロケーション
mkazutaka
1
130
ストレージエンジニアの仕事と、近年の計算機について / 第58回 情報科学若手の会
pfn
PRO
3
870
Building a cloud native business on open source
lizrice
0
190
Featured
See All Featured
The Illustrated Children's Guide to Kubernetes
chrisshort
49
51k
The MySQL Ecosystem @ GitHub 2015
samlambert
251
13k
4 Signs Your Business is Dying
shpigford
185
22k
VelocityConf: Rendering Performance Case Studies
addyosmani
333
24k
Templates, Plugins, & Blocks: Oh My! Creating the theme that thinks of everything
marktimemedia
31
2.6k
Context Engineering - Making Every Token Count
addyosmani
8
300
Mobile First: as difficult as doing things right
swwweet
225
10k
Refactoring Trust on Your Teams (GOTO; Chicago 2020)
rmw
35
3.2k
Unsuck your backbone
ammeep
671
58k
GraphQLとの向き合い方2022年版
quramy
49
14k
How Fast Is Fast Enough? [PerfNow 2025]
tammyeverts
2
64
Music & Morning Musume
bryan
46
6.9k
Transcript
What beginners teach us Selena Deckelmann @selenamarie Staff Data Architect,
Mozilla
photo by courthouselover
The adult section
None
I could go there.
Discovering what’s possible
None
http://bit.ly/1fQEXeF
http://github.com/mozilla/socorro
None
None
None
None
None
http://bit.ly/1fOgBSB
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the
expert’s mind, there are few.” -Shunryu Suzuki
I am a beginner teacher
full of possibility
the one thing... Next time you answer a beginner’s question
take a moment and consider... How will the beginner feel
when they hear your answer?
I’ve been involved in FOSS Since 1995
PyLadies Get women who code together In September 2012, I
joined...
our first project... A Coursera Class
Walk away or Figure out how to teach?
beginners: Open to possibility and overwhelmed by choice
TMTOWTDI the best part of beginners mind adventure, possibility, inclusive
but...
None
None
our job as teacher is to answer... “What do I
do next?”
And to consider: How do people feel while they’re taking
the next step?
What does learning how to program feel like?
None
When experience is a dead end
None
None
None
When PyLadies succeeds
None
None
None
Engineering experiences
“The unwritten first chapter” Big goals Early wins In-person connections
Cultivate a learning environment
Tools for engineering great beginner experiences
From Hacker School: No “Well, Actually...” No Feigning Surprise
pairing best instructors are those that just learned
1:3 ratio instruction to doing
listen carefully learn from how students rephrase and ask questions
PyLadiesPDX 412 women 1-2 meetings per week
• New skills • Peer support • Structure and routine
• Confidence What PyLadies say they get:
How have I benefited and what have I learned from
teaching?
write better code write better docs gain perspective
recruit diverse members to your communities
adainitiative.org openhatch.org pyladies.org
and...
an informed public
Julie Horvath’s blog post http://julieannhorvath.com/2013/07/09/a-different-perspective.html
“I didn’t grow up thinking I could do anything I
wanted to.”
I see this every day teaching adults.
People don’t know what’s possible.
Where I belong, where I can go
make a better world!
teach! <3
What beginners teach us Selena Deckelmann @selenamarie Staff Data Architect,
Mozilla
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike
3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. All photos are © by owners. PyLadies photos shared with permission. Kalispell public library photo shared with permission, not for commercial reuse.