5 tips if you're feeling unqualified to teach as a coding newbie
Let's start with some context. When I was first learning how to code in 2018 and 2019, although it was fun, I definitely found it challenging. I took two 8 week courses with Code First Girls at PA Consulting and took a break when I returned to university in 2019 where I focused on my final year of my Economics and Accounting degree.
In 2020, when 💩 hit the fan, I wanted to properly start coding again and despite the fact that my mailbox was getting flooded with rejection emails and loads of companies having hiring freezes, I wanted to make a difference and challenge myself by applying to be an instructor for Code First Girls.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't feel qualified at the time AT ALL. I was still stuck in the comfort zone of following along with tutorials without pushing myself to create projects from scratch, and I found learning JavaScript properly quite the learning curve. Plus, I hadn't yet landed my first tech role!
All the anxious thoughts were running through my head: what if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? What if I'm really bad at teaching? What if they realise I'm an imposter and not experienced enough to teach?
Despite these thoughts, I knew that this was something I'd definitely want to at least try so I knew for sure.
I was so thrilled when my application was accepted to teach the Introduction to Web Development course!
Fortunately, I wasn't alone, there were three other super amazing and talented instructors with me which made all the difference.
Here are 5 tips on this if you're going to be teaching people how to code or are looking to do so, but don't feel qualified enough:
- Set up an initial meeting with the instructors so you know who's teaching which lessons. I wanted to make sure I was teaching the first few lessons that were HTML and CSS focused as I didn't think I could effectively teach JavaScript at that point.
It's also a great time to speak about how you want to split up the lessons. For the course, we split each of the sessions in half with a different instructor leading the sections. E.g. lesson 1's first half would be lead by me, break, and then the second half would be lead by the instructor. - Prepare, prepare, prepare! Before you teach a lesson, make sure to go over the material so you feel comfortable with it. I spent time going through the exercises and practiced how to explain it before being live in front of the students just so I felt familiar with the content.
- When you're asked a question that you don't know the answer to, you can always say "does someone else want to take this?" so that another instructor can step in to answer. You can also show the students how to get the answer through Googling - not only does it show to them that developers use Google all the time, but it reinforces that we don't have all the answers and that's okay and totally normal.
- Ask for feedback! It's always great to hear positive and also constructive feedback when you're doing something new like teaching.
I remember some feedback I got was to slow down, I was just so excited when I did my first lesson, I was going a bit too fast paced. I kept checking in with the students to make sure they were okay, and fortunately they were honest and said I was going a bit too fast for them.
It was great to get that feedback early on so I could adjust my teaching style in the future lessons too.
Plus I had great feedback that I was energetic, explained things well and made lessons fun. - Give yourself some grace. Teaching is challenging for sure, and I've definitely messed up before. It's so important when you to do be as kind to yourself about it as possible, we all make mistakes!
It's still crazy that I had the guts to teach people how to code before even landing my first role in tech.
I have to say, teaching people how to code so early in my journey had so many benefits (I may have to do a separate blog post on that). I always recommend it to newbies if they have the bandwidth to do so.
Teaching with Code First Girls is an amazing opportunity to use your knowledge and experience to teach beginners how to code and to give back to the CFG community. If this is something you would be interested in, you can complete and submit this form.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you have any tips that you'd add? Have you considered teaching people how to code yet?