Codecool’s education model is different from the education system that you’ve experienced before. How? This page explains it in detail.
Key points
- Students advance based on mastery.
- Students progress at different paces.
- Learning time is more flexible and designed to encourage extended learning opportunities.
In a nutshell
We have 4 rooms in the school. You start in the first room: Prog Basics, then you can go to the next room only when you’ve mastered the actual one.
Mastery gates between rooms (gray arrows on the illustration) are well-defined expectations and formal assessments. You have to master certain skills to pass through a gate.
Finally, when you mastered all the necessary skills, you can apply to a partner company and start your on-the-job training period.
More details
- The learning resources and goals are available from the beginning (when you enter a room). It should be clear what you have to achieve and by when.
- In each room, professional projects and professional mentors help the work.
- You can digest the SI/TW (self-instructed / teamwork) materials and practice on assignments at your own pace. But you cannot do the entire module within a week…
- There’s a minimum time in each room: 4 SI/TW weeks (around 2 months). The primary reason is teamwork. You have to practice it - together with your peers and it takes time.
- And there’s a maximum time in each room: 8 SI/TW weeks (around 4 months). Because we all need constraints and we have limited resources.
- The maximum for the whole course is 15 months (30 SI/TW weeks).
- When you (and your mentors) feel that you’re ready, you can go to a Personal Assessment (PA).
- If you succeed, you can pass the gate to the next room.
- If you don’t succeed, you can try the PA again later, and you will remain in that room.
- Classroom changes:
- Teams work on their TW projects. The difference: not all teams do the same project, some of the teams work on the “1st TW project” others on the “2nd TW project”, etc.
- Students learn together. The difference: students have different experience level. Some students are more “seniors” (who spent more time in the room) and can help better the “newbies”.
- Teams sit together. The difference: some students leave the room earlier, some stay for longer, so team merging, new team forming is more frequent.
- Mentors do workshops, frontal sessions, presentations, etc. The difference: not for the entire room, only for students who are involved and require the session.
- To keep the personal focus, there’s a dedicated personal mentor for the entire journey (during the entire 18 months, including the on-the-job training period). -> If you don’t have a personal mentor yet, contact the closest mentor nearby.
Benefits
- You can finish Codecool sooner - within around 8-9 months and optionally you can find extra challenges during the journey.
- If you need more time on a topic (or in a room), you are not stressed, you can get extra time and help.
- You can work in more homogeneous project teams - there are possibly fewer conflicts with speed issues.
- You can practice peer mentoring and tutor (when newcomers are in the room) - it’s a great way of learning - see the Learning pyramid for details
- Professional mentoring + Personal mentoring combo can help in any situation, you won’t be lost!