Makes all the difference in the world
At this point in my journey, I've taken courses from a wide array of instructors, including some shorter tutorials on Youtube. In fact, in a broader scope of my life, I've received instruction from an incredibly wide array of instructors. There is a stark difference in the quality of learning from when the instructor is of a high grade and when the instructor could care less about whether or not you actually learn the material. Several times in the last two days, I've had flashbacks to when I was in high school and the classes I took there. Some of the teachers were great at their jobs, and you could see their passion immediately. These courses were fun, and you inherently learned quite a bit because of this. On the other hand, when the instructor wasn't engaged in the least or just plain bad at their delivery of the concepts, there was very little learning going on. One teacher I had in particular in high school taught one of the most challenging courses in the school and graded accordingly: AP European History. The material taught in this course could have been incredibly captivating, but he would sit on the edge of his desk and go through the lesson as he had a million times before, with no enthusiasm for the material whatsoever. Needless to say, I didn't do well in this course.
As it relates to web development, most of the instructors I've come across have a great deal of enthusiasm and love for the material they are covering. The difference in levels of instruction comes down to technique at this point. Some that I've had assume way too much and gloss over the parts that really matter, while vaguely explaining incredibly complex concepts. Sometimes, this is necessary to cover the amount of ground they want to cover. However, with this high level of material, it's so important to take the time to walk through every bit of code to truly understand it. I think some instructors just don't know the material well enough to actually do this, while others feel it is below the level of the students being taught to break it down into a simple form like this. I think even senior developers would fill in gaps of knowledge they didn't even know if they took courses that went into great depth like this, though.
Will Sentance's courses are exactly this. He is taking really complex concepts like higher order functions and closure and presenting them in a way that anyone could understand with a basic knowledge of JavaScript. He takes a block of code as an example and walks through every single line, explaining what JavaScript is actually doing under the hood, including what's happening to the call stack and creating execution contexts to demonstrate the local environments. He also stresses the importance of using the correct verbiage to explain exactly what is going on. When in an interview, if asked a technical question, it's vital to explain it with the correct terms used instead of saying something that's actually wrong. The best part about his courses is his style; he's funny, upbeat, and incredibly knowledgeable about the topics being covered. I find myself laughing out loud to some of his jokes and the ways he presents. It's clear to me that he spends as much time studying and learning the material being covered as he does studying his own style and how to teach in general. Teaching is an artform, not something that is inherent to everyone immediately.
Until tomorrow!
