Hi,
I run an internal 3-day intro to
Java course where I work for a variety of people (developers, technical people, web people, scientists). I am just in the process of re-working this course considerably to introduce OO much earlier rather than ploughing straight into all the syntax.
Anyway, I want to get more of a team atmosphere going this time, and we're going to be sitting around designing our application together on paper etc before we start coding.
The way we are set up here is that trainees each have their own PC in the lab to work on. But I can't decide whether to:
1) Do it the usual way and each trainee sits at their own PC and does their own version of the application
2) pair trainees up at each machine and make them work together on one application
3) make project teams of 3 or 4 people to work partly at their own PC's but all contribute to one application at the end
At the moment I'm liking option 2 because I think it will help them learn, and will also make it easier for me than helping individual people all working on separate versions of a a project. However, how do I sell it to them...is it even a good idea?
any experiences/comments?