I thought before I started this course, "oh, it's the third time I do this, it's all old hat, I'll just have a general recap blog post rather than weekly ones" but heh, as long as I keep learning and questions and topics to ponder come up, I'll keep writing them down if only for future reference.

I worked hard to have an interesting session with plenty of content this week. I mixed and mashed and added and transformed what usually takes 4-5 hours into an intense 2 hours session. It was worth it, I think it was a good pace for this class and the experience was rewarding.

It was really hard work though. It took such a long time to prepare that I'm not quite sure I can scale it, especially now that I need to create new material (and I'll be travelling the last 2 week-ends of the course). I'll see what I can come up with to keep things interesting without burning out on preparations -- all suggestions very welcome!

In parallel I've been reading an incredibly helpful book on teaching, and am using its tips and advice to structure my lessons better. I'm also figuring out things that are more specific to teaching programming ; for instance, having a code reading question when it's time to stop the exercises seems good at making students actually stop what they're doing and pay attention to the front of the class, rather than their screen. Then it's easier to move on to explaining a new concept.