Did Kenneth learn nothing from the pushback/feedback provided for his TacoCat challenge...?

Hey James! Forgive me for answering for Kenneth here, but as his manager I just wanted to address your concerns about these challenges being different from others. I just wrote a detailed response to your older post, but tl;dr: these challenges are intentionally different to see if they help students more or less than what we normally do. We are on a continuous quest to improve how we teach, and Kenneth is one of our more innovative teachers, looking for ways to introduce real-world challenges to students with the goal of preparing them as well as possible.

Please feel free to leave feedback about any and all steps using the Feedback link at the end of each video, quiz, and code challenge. Please also continue to discuss what you like and don't like here in the forum and seek help when you are stuck. Know that we want and will listen to feedback and will act on it where we feel it will help. Also know that you can count on us to keep looking for ways to get better, which includes trying different things in courses or within the context of our app.

James I would like to point out that at some 66k points maybe you should be worried less about completing challenges and actually build things with the techniques that you have learned. Showing a potential employer working demos will get you work faster than badges, points, and a bad attitude.

Hi Ben, Your blue detailed response hyperlink above leads to a forum thread that only has Ken Alger and Rodrigo Muñoz posting.

However on the link to the old Flask thread above I found you had added this:

Hey James! While I'm sorry that you aren't happy with this code challenge, I just want to chime in from a team perspective to say that we actively and intentionally try different ways of challenging and assessing students to learn how to improve what we're doing. You're right that this challenge is different and harder than any other I can think of on our site, but it's to give some real-world practice and an opportunity to practice something that's potentially a great learning experience. We have guidelines for teachers to stay roughly similar in style and approach but encourage this kind of innovation!

We definitely want to hear feedback about what works and what doesn't and will always take that into account. We have set aside explicit time recently to improve low-rated steps in courses. Despite your (and admittedly a few others') frustration here , this challenge is rated pretty highly in our feedback reports (based on the "Feedback" link at the end of each video, quiz, or code challenge). Kenneth has talked about some potential enhancements to make it easier to work through, but we'll keep trying fun and challenging exercises like this. I would expect more teachers to add challenges along these lines as opposed to stop doing them like this.

An important thing to remember here at Treehouse, or anywhere, really, is that the goal is to learn and master something important or useful to you, not just complete a course, earn points, and move on. Learning how to program or use a new framework or tool will always require some struggle. It's how our brain muscles grow. :) Our mission is to prepare people for careers or hobbies in technology, and we need to do that by teaching and challenging students. And we need to continually evolve how we challenge students to be as effective as we can.

I hope this doesn't come across as dismissive of your criticism here because we need it to make sure we are serving students appropriately. I just want to address your concerns about these challenges and let you know that you can expect to come across different varieties of projects and challenges going forward as we evolve our courses to teach and prepare students as well as we possibly can.

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To answer your points one by one:

We have guidelines for teachers to stay roughly similar in style and approach but encourage this kind of innovation!

I don't discourage innovation, but I also don't want the amount of work to be accurately reflected in the number of points (which this methodology does not accurately produce)

and I already see there are many students who don't end up completing all the courses.

I don't have detailed data regarding how many people attempted this and the TacoCat challenge and never finished,

but I worry that students will start to be discouraged from even starting a course if they see the final challenge has been purposefully made *TOO challenging.

And we need to continually evolve how we challenge students to be as effective as we can.

Please don't let me stop Treehouse from evolving!

However, here's another approach to including material that may be TOO challenging to a course that is already very challenging.

Why don't you have optional "course addons"?

These would be for students that want to do extra work over and above what is presented in the main part of a course.

This would be different from some Treehouse courses that do offer extra credit without crediting any points for it.

It would also be different from the sum-all-the-whole-course-in-one-final-challenge final challenges,

because you could get the badges/points for completing the course

without necessarily having to do the "course addon" if it seems too challenging.

.

Many programming books separate out "over the top" material and put it into addendums for further student exploration without taking away from the main core of the book.

I think TeamTreehouse should be able to do the same.

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this challenge is rated pretty highly in our feedback reports (based on the "Feedback" link at the end of each video, quiz, or code challenge).

Really? How would I (a non-Teamtreehouse insider) know this?

Are summaries of this feedback published anywhere that all students can access?

Probably not ---due to "confidentiality" reasons

(that usually the excuse because if you published all the feedback with names attached

it might prove inhibitory to some giving feedback in the future).

Personally I think ALL feedback should be given openly in forum threads.

Get it out there so everyone can see it --and if it gets ignored (gets no response for mods or Treehouse staff)

then that is for all to see as well.

That's why until Treehouse choose to publicly publish all feedback given through the Feedback link I will continue my practice of using forum threads to provide fully published and accessible feedback.

I think this is the best way for Treehouse to "evolve".

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the goal is to learn and master something important or useful to you, not just complete a course, earn points, and move on.

Here's my question after hearing such a statement:

If it's all about the "learning" (and never about points/badges), then why even bother to have points or badges?

I feel whatever your convenient rationalization you may come up with to justify any use of points now becomes a bit of hypocrisy in relation to the narrowness of the stated goal above.

Here's why I do Treehouse courses. I belong to something called CodeOregon.

I realize there are students that subscribe just for their own professional knowledge advancement.

For them I provide a link to the Codeoregon page:

https://teamtreehouse.com/code-oregon

It states on that page:

Our goal is to create new designers and developers to fill the huge number of jobs that are being created.

All though this sounds like:

Our mission is to prepare people for careers or hobbies in technology

The tangentially missing word is "jobs".

The word "career" doesn't mean the same as "job".

I like the distinction made on this page:

https://www.iseek.org/mymncareers/advance-career/job-vs-career.html

...where it says:

A job can be just going to work to earn a paycheck.

I'm fine with that. I need a paycheck.

It would be great to be able to use the specialized knowledge in my head to earn a better paycheck

than if I just got a paycheck from a low pay dead end job.

However, if you spend a lifetime having a series of jobs then, guess what?

In my mind you've achieved something like a "career".

I come from a time when people worked some same job for 20-30 years or more

and retired from that one single job.

Even though things have changed that was the way it was not so long ago.

People didn't start out with a factory job after graduating from high school in the mid-west because they wanted a "career".

They did it because they needed a paycheck.

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What's another way of explaining how the TeamTreehouse "model" is a little off-kilter

when applied to the "big picture" setting of the real world.

Hmmm....

Imagine the skepticism of a HR person or job recruiter when, at an interview you say:

I spend a whole bunch of time on the Treehouse online learning site challenging myself.

and I learned stuff.

They say:

"Great, show me your college course transcripts."

I reply back (sheepishly):

"Well, actually, we never got anything like some paper college transcripts, but I do have a online public profile page that shows the badges and points I've earned"

They say:

"Really? Badges? Points?

I blurt out:

"It's sort of like being able to demonstrate you went to a real 4 year accredited institution

because the badges are roughly equivalent to regular college courses completed

and points are roughly equivalent to credits for regular college courses."

They say:

"Roughly...harrumph...tell me about boards that have accredited these Treehouse online courses."

That's when I start to look for the exit to the interview room.

Because (of course) Treehouse learning is actually not accredited by anybody:

https://teamtreehouse.com/community/accredited-school-degree-or-certificate

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The fact is though:

Having an online profile page is better than having nothing at all to show "learning",

So (for the record) points *ARE important.

They're aren't nothing (worthlessly redundant to the more high falutin "learning" goals)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/highfalutin

One might ask:

Without points and badges, is Treehouse any better than taking free MOOC courses?

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You also said (starting off):

Hey James! Forgive me for answering for Kenneth here, but as his manager..

Teamtreehouse has managers now?

Last time I read this article they had gotten rid of them:

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2013/12/portland_startup_treehouse_eli.html

http://ryancarson.com/post/61562761297/no-managers-why-we-removed-bosses-at-treehouse

http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/working-in-a-flat-company

I'm glad there is someone providing oversight of what Instructor Love is doing.

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Anyway, to be honest, in the final analysis I don't really think anything I learn at Treehouse

is going to make me more "employable" in the eyes of potential employers.

The truth is:

Not working very much (except for the occasional contract job) I have way too much time

on my hands and way too much computer expertise in my head.

Wasting time completing Treehouse courses is better than

watching TV that just turns your mind to mush.

So I wasted enough time to complete the Django Basic course and now I can go on to complete

the Customizing Django templates with MS. Lacey Williams Henschel.

She's definitely a lot prettier (and a more charismatic teacher) than Kenneth..

Hi Geoffrey, Thanks for you feedback - but I have to agree to disagree.

The hiring process nowadays is the most convoluted as it has been in my my many decades on this planet and the HR people are struggling with what they call metrics.

How does an HR person evaluate whether there is a good fit for a candidate.

By using keyword matching --that only gets you so far.

Most HR people don't have the time or resources to adequately test for technical competency.

Having a TeamTreehouse profile means you are "pre-tested" at multiple languages.

At least that's the way I wish recruiter would use my TeamTreehouse profile.

Unfortunately without the minimum qualification of having a 4 year Bachelors degree,

the TeamTreehouse profile (that I do include in my resume), mostly gets ignored.

I know that because I've taken both a screenshot of the profile

and my resume with the profile url included to interviews.

They invariably physically move the printed screenshot of the profile

to the other side of the table/desk (away from them) and ask only

about my associates degree (like "..and you are planning to go back to school to get your

4 year degree soon, right?")

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And (by the way) its not the 66k points I'm worried about has getting the course completed for the badge.

That's why I say challenges that are above a certain level of difficulty should be

separated out so they don't interfere with completing the course.