This content is maintained by the FEWD Product Advisory Board. To learn more about the Board and how to contribute to this curriculum, visit [our Board homepage}(http://assemblyrequired.ga.co/instructor-resources/access-course-materials/front-end-web-development-part-time-fewd/).
This repository contains all the materials GA supplies its Front-End Web Development instructors. Bear in mind that many of the files in this repo are meant to be instructor-facing only. See the corresponding FEWD repo template for instructions on how to set up a student-facing repository for your class.
General Assembly's Front-End Web Development (FEWD) course is made up of 20 lessons that are 3 hours each. This course is split into 3 week units.
- Unit 1: HTML/CSS Basics
- Unit 2: Adding Interactivity
- Unit 3: Building In Concert
For a schedule of all lessons and notes on the materials provided for each lesson, please see the sample schedule.
We highly recommend you begin preparing your lessons before the course starts. You should start prepping to teach the materials 1 - 2 weeks prior to course launch. A good benchmark is to prepare the first 5 - 6 lessons before the course begins.
During these preparation weeks you should:
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Update the slide decks for each lesson to correspond with what you plan to teach.
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Review the sample and solution code for each lesson and assignment and make sure you agree with the way it was coded. If not, you can always make tweaks to the code. Keep in mind the students' level of understanding but don't share code you don't agree with.
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Review all curriculum materials and think about how you would like to apply your teaching style and professional experience to the classroom.
We've supplied a folder for each week and lesson. In these folders we've included:
Materials | Description | How to Use It |
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README.md | Topic break down and suggested schedule. | Use this to get a high level view of the week, including information on the lesson plan, in-class exercises, assignments and final project milestones. |
Slides | Markdown file with slide content. | Customize each deck before sharing with students (more on that during the on-boarding meeting with your producer). We suggest using reveal.js to present slides to the class. Be sure to maintain the same folder structure so that the relative image paths still work. |
Code Alongs | Code to be used by instructors to help demonstrate a concept. | These are exercises where you'll demonstrate a concept in class while students follow along on their machines. Type slowly and explain the concepts, pausing at regular intervals to check for understanding. |
Exercises | Code examples for in-class exercises. | Be sure to read all of the instructions and solution files in advance, so that you are able to answer any questions students might have. |
Starter Code Folder | This is a folder with all the starter code students need for that lesson. | You should share this folder with students before every lesson. Make the necessary changes if you are using different code. |
Solution Folder | This is a folder with all solutions to code alongs and exercises | Share individual solution files as needed. Student should be provided with code demo solutions before lab time to use as a reference. |
Assignments | Exercises to be completed outside of class. | Each assignment folder contains the assignment prompt, starter code, solution code and a grading rubric. |
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Read the weekly README, and take a look at the weekly assignment.
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Review the lesson agenda schedule and learning objectives. Become familiar with what we would like students to accomplish during a particular lesson.
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Dive into the lesson planning notes.
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View the solution file, and make sure you agree with the solutions. If you don't, change it before you share with students. Students want to feel like you are in command of all materials you share with them.
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Decide how you will bring your expertise to the classroom and what materials you will have to edit in order to incorporate any additions or changes you are planning to make to the lesson.
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Use The Slide Deck To Determine lesson flow. The slides.md files we provide are meant to serve as a baseline. Be sure to update the slides to fit the lessons as you intend to teach them. If you prefer not to use slides, you can use the markdown files for the slides to help you plan the flow of each class.
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If you prefer not to use the GA-provided code alongs/in-class exercises, create your own and make sure they hit the same topics and learning objectives for that lesson. If you do build new exercises, please share your work with the curriculum team, either via email or by sending a pull-request to this repo. We are actively working to build the best curriculum we can and are always happy to consider contributions from instructors!
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Practice using reveal.js. It can be tricky to get the hang of the workflow (see below).
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We suggest using reveal.js with external markdown.
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Any text following the line
Note:
in a given slide will not appear in the presented deck. However, when you share the rendered markdown (i.e as a pdf), students will see the notes. This is a great place to put presenter notes and additional information you would like students to read outside of class. -
See here for further documentation about reveal.js.
The slides we provide are a skeletal deck and require your customization! If there are slides you do not agree with, you can update them. If you want to introduce topics in a different order, feel free to reorder them.
In order to pass this course General Assembly students must:
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Complete and submit 80% of all course homework assignments.
- Students will receive feedback from instructors on their assignments within 2 - 4 days.
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Complete and submit the course final project, including all milestones.
In FEWD, we use GitHub for student-facing materials, homework submission, final project hosting, feedback and grading.
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Do not attempt to teach Git and GitHub using the command line! Please see the GitHub lesson for recommended tools and teaching strategies.
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Students will learn GitHub as part of the pre-work and via the modular GitHub lesson. If your instance schedules a class 0, the instructor can teach the concepts included in the GitHub lesson in class 0. Otherwise, the GitHub lesson should be taught as part of either Lesson 1 or 2.
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In order to host their final projects online, students will use GitHub pages. The final project prompt contains links to both a video and step-by-step guide that will walk students through the process of getting their site up and running on GitHub pages. You may also want to provide a quick in-class demo on how to get a site up and running on GitHub pages.
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For guidance on the homework submission, grading and feedback workflow using GitHub, please see the GitHub_Grading_Workflow doc.
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Producers should set up a student-facing repo for the course which will be handed-off to the instructional team. For information on how to set up a student-facing repo see these instructions.
Term | Description |
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Course | Refers to all 20 classes which make up the FEWD curriculum. |
Lesson | One 3 hour session of the course. |
In Class Lab (ICL) | Exercise files that are to be used in-class as examples and practice. |
Check for Understanding (CFU) | A point in the lesson where the instructor stops to check if students have understood the material that has just been taught. |
Final Project | The personal project each student will submit and present. Share the project requirements as early as possible. |