[fedora-classroom] Class Duration

[David]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 2:49 AM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin at scrye.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 17 May 2009 20:03:46 +1000
> David <bouncingcats at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> When I started this thread it was based only on my impression from the
>> small sample of classroom sessions I had attended.
>>
>> So I thought it might be more objective to collect a data set from the
>> logs at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Classroom.
>>
>> The summary below shows that in the total sample of 26
>> nominal-60-minute classes on the wiki, there was nearly always time
>> pressure between presentation and questions, and only 6 occasions when
>> there was more than 5 minutes for final questions.
>>
>> And again I'd like to congratulate everyone involved who I think did a
>> great job. I'm just suggesting the task might be easier if they werent
>> trying to fit a great presentation plus great interactive questions
>> into a 60 minute slot on IRC.
>>
>> I suggest classes be scheduled at minimum 90 minute intervals, based
>> on approx 45 min presentation, 30 min questions, and 15 min break.
>
> Yeah, one thing to keep in mind however is that many sessions (at least
> the ones I have done), the teachers allow/encourage questions during
> the session itself. This means that there is probibly going to be less
> questions at the end, simply because people already asked them when
> they thought of them. ;)

Sure, and thats great, so I was mindful of that when I tried to assess
the logs, but its quite a difficult thing to measure, so after giving
that some thought I decided it was too hard to do justice to that
aspect, but I still wanted to try to come up with some useful data, so
I restricted my focus to the end of the class to try to assess if it
was truncated or not.

> I don't object to 90min as a default... I agree that most classess have
> had much more material to discuss. Also, if a class finishes early,
> there are no more questions, then the break between that class and the
> next could just be larger, no harm done. ;)

Thats how it looks to me too.

Thanks for the opportunity to give and clarify some input. I don't
mind if my suggestions are adopted or not, as long as I've had the
opportunity to explain them fully, which I have.

Skim-reading through all the logs emphasised even more to me what a
great job you and all the helpers and presenters have done on this
project.