Well, it’s now a little over a month and one Dojo session after beginning our new review process and we have some more reflections:

1. Our first reflection (and it’s a little meta), is that it’s easier to make reflections than to implement change based on them! It will take us樂威壯
   a little while to build momentum on new initiatives and change doesn’t finish overnight. And some of our plans from last time were easier to implement than others. Last time I mentioned that we’re going to update the blog more often and – hurray – here’s another blog post. But a couple of our other plans fell apart a little at the April session. We’ve noticed that on the day, we tend to scramble initially, get our bearings somewhere in the middle, and become organized by the end. So we’re going to make more of an effort to get there well before the kids and make sure we’re in the right mindset when the morning rush begins. I suspect that this will be a gradual improvement for us over the next few sessions.
2. Our new mastery badges got positive reactions from kids and parents alike. We’re looking forward to more of that going forward. It is a new initiative for us though, so we’re still ironing out exactly how the process works. Do we award badges at the end of each session? At the beginning of the following session? Do we ask students to present at the end with the other presenters or do we have a separate set of presentations? Do we need more badges to recognize more varied skills? We’ll need to experiment a little to see what works best. By all means, feel free to let us know if you have thoughts on the matter.
3. On the topic of presentations: We love seeing kids show off their work, and we think it’s a great way to finish sessions. For so many reasons, we love the idea of presentations. But we’ve been noticing a general slump in momentum during presentations. We’re going to focus on this part of the session and fine-tune it over the course of the next few months.

We have regular meetups with the wonderful people who mentor with us at CoderDojo but if you attended a session recently and you have your own reflections, please share them with us. Comments below or on Facebook are great ways to let us know what you think. See you at the May session!

Over the last few months, the leadership team at CoderDojo KC has been quietly making notes and reflections in order to enrich the Dojo experience (stay tuned for a quick introduction to the leadership team). It’s been exciting to be part of but it’s sad when learning is limited to a select few. So we’re going to start posting our top post-session reflections!

1. We’re going to post regular updates on this blog to help everyone see the depth of CoderDojo. This is a blog post. Hurray!
2. We need to keep track of which mentors come to each session. We love being mentors and we know that all of our mentors love it too. Mentoring at CoderDojo is a strictly volunteer affair and an enriching part of some very highly trained professional’s weekends. The mentors who often attend have learnt the ropes, and may want to be able to help more. Keeping track of mentor attendance will help us identify those mentors!
3. We have a love-hate relationship with Scratch. It’s a fantastic tool for new coders, especiall威而鋼
   y the younger ones. Kids get good at it and they want to do what they’re good at. Hurray! But they often get stuck building gratuitous sketches that don’t take advantage of the full power of Scratch. Not to mention they miss out on learning the other complex programming technologies that mentors use every day. That’s a shame. So we’re going to put more emphasis on helping kids with complexity.
4. After each session, we’ll gather at least the leadership team at the next KC Geek Night and reflect on what worked and what didn’t. We have leadership meetings before each session, but by that time it’s been weeks since the last session. Reflections and memories fade.
5. Circling back around to  #2, we are going to start handing out per-session responsibilities to some mentors. Even if we have really insightful and implementable reflections, the small leadership team alone can’t afford to be micromanaging during sessions. Our mentors are very capable people and we want those qualities embodied in each session.

Are you a mentor with a suggestion? Or a participant or a parent? Or a CoderDojo co-conspirator from another city? Post a comment or come to the next Geek Night to keep the Dojo love alive!