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This week we’re going to take a look at the Treehouse Community and see what Treehouse Students are talking about. If you haven’t visited the community forum yet, I can’t stress this enough, you really should. It’s amazing. I’ve never seen a more friendly place to ask a question. And it’s not just course and workshop related questions. There are all kinds of discussions from coding experience to the journey and lots of very honest and vulnerable questions too. It’s so welcoming, I’m always blown away by what great information and advice gets surfaced. This is such an awesome student run resource for you while you are learning to code, please take advantage of it. If you are feeling a certain way, chances are, you aren’t alone in what you are going through. If you are having a hard time understanding something, somebody else is too. Also, I bet you can answer some questions that people who are at an earlier stage in their coding journey are asking. Nothing cements your learning like answering questions. Everyone wins.
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Hi, welcome to the Treehouse Show.
0:00
The Treehouse Show is a weekly
conversation with the Treehouse community.
0:02
[SOUND] This week, we're going to take
a look at the Treehouse community and
0:04
see what students are talking about.
0:10
If you haven't visited a community
forum yet, I can't stress this enough.
0:13
You really should.
0:17
It's amazing.
0:18
I've never seen a more friendly
place to ask a question.
0:20
And it's not just course of
workshop related questions.
0:22
There are all kinds of discussions from
coding experience to the journey and
0:25
lots of honest and
vulnerable questions too.
0:29
It's so welcoming.
0:32
I'm always blown away by what great
information and advice gets surfaced.
0:33
This is such an awesome
student run resource for
0:37
you while you're learning the code.
0:40
So please take advantage of it.
0:42
If you're feeling a certain way,
0:43
chances are you aren't alone
in what you're going through.
0:45
If you're having a hard time understanding
something, somebody else is, too.
0:48
Also, I bet you can answer some questions
that people who are at an earlier stage in
0:51
their coding journey are asking.
0:55
Nothing cements your learning
like answering questions.
0:57
Everyone wins.
1:00
Let me show off some examples
of what I'm talking about.
1:01
What do you do when you hit
a wall in your studying and
1:04
you don't know what to do next?
1:06
Jon Myzzle asked a tough question last
week in the community about The Wall.
1:09
Which is that problem that you have when
you've got a project you're working on and
1:13
you're staring at a blank code
editor wondering, what do I do next?
1:16
Well here's how he describes the problem.
1:20
My problem right now is I feel like
I'm just not retaining anything.
1:22
I open up a Note++ document or
a Codepen pen and
1:26
I just don't even know where to start.
1:29
This is a great question and I love
this post because there are three great
1:32
student responses with suggestions
on what to do when you get stuck.
1:35
Stephen Parker suggests pacing yourself,
study regularly,
1:39
find supplemental learning that teaches
the same thing in different ways and
1:43
most importantly, stick with it.
1:47
Ari Mischa suggests creating a wireframe.
1:49
Modularize your code as much as possible
and look at similar products on GitHub.
1:52
And Greg Kaleka suggests that when
you're learning at Treehouse,
1:56
do the thing that you're being taught and
then apply it to something different.
2:00
And he gives a great example
of a navigation bar.
2:04
If you're learning how to create a navbar,
then do that on your own.
2:06
Thanks, Ari, Steven and Greg,
these are all great suggestions.
2:09
When you're feeling stuck, I recommend
getting away from your computer.
2:13
Get outside and enjoy some fresh air.
2:17
Think about the problem.
2:19
Try to relate it to other problems
that you might have solved.
2:21
Find inspiration in similar projects or
apps.
2:24
Now, John is talking
specifically about HTML and CSS.
2:27
The great news about that,
is that there is code always available.
2:31
Pop open a site that you like and
view the source.
2:34
Check out how they did the layout.
2:37
Toy with changing it around,
right there in your browser.
2:38
How do you learn?
2:41
In this community post, Marius Posogan
writes that when he takes courses,
2:42
he likes to watch a video two or
three times, pause, take notes and
2:46
then experiment doing
related stuff in a workspace.
2:50
He says for every hour of study,
2:53
that he consumes about 15
minutes of Treehouse content.
2:55
And he asks people,
how do they like to learn?
2:59
Let's see how other
students like to learn.
3:01
Brian Ball says he trying to
implement a daily warm-up
3:03
in the language he wants to be current in.
3:06
Writing out some codes with
basic functionality and
3:08
connecting to an external API.
3:10
Just like jogging he says, you're only
able to do it, if you're doing it.
3:12
Christiana says that while HTML and
3:15
CSS were easy to understand,
she repeated JavaScript and
3:19
jQuery courses multiple times and
read as much online as she could.
3:23
Treehouse Moderator, Jennifer Nordell,
wrote a blog post about the learning curve
3:28
with a good point that
learning isn't linear.
3:32
Spending one hour on coding doesn't
make you one hour more proficient.
3:35
I also love this metaphor of how learning
to code is like learning to cook.
3:39
Very few people memorize
every recipe in a cookbook.
3:45
If a programmer had to memorize
everything about even one language,
3:49
we'd have no programmers.
3:53
You don't have to memorize it.
3:54
Isn't that great?
3:56
Now personally, when I'm learning online,
I like to follow along and
3:57
if I can't pass the challenge,
I rewatch the lesson.
4:01
What a great opportunity that is.
4:04
You can't do that in school.
4:06
It's not like, hey, about this test here I
got a C on, can you just repeat what you
4:07
said two times as fast and
then stop when I tell you to?
4:12
Yeah and just do that for me and
then I'll take the test again and
4:15
make sure I got it, okay?
4:18
Thanks, bye.
4:19
Look, everyone does have
different styles here.
4:20
My advice is to take advantage of
what you have at your disposal.
4:23
Use the speed controls,
turn on the captions and
4:26
if you're aren't sure that the way that
you understand how a race work is right.
4:28
Ask about it in the community,
right from that video.
4:32
Search the community for
related questions, answer ones you can.
4:36
And again, take breaks.
4:39
Most of my aha moments are done doing
something completely unrelated to coding,
4:41
like when I'm watching something
on Netflix, my wife hates it.
4:45
Nico Leuchter asks if we shoot our courses
in a greenscreen or in a real room.
4:49
And yes, we do.
4:53
We work in a real studio.
4:54
We have two studios.
4:55
One in Orlando and one in Portland Oregon.
4:56
Portland studio is this one, with
the bike and even the plant over there.
4:58
The Orlando one is the one with
the stairs that lead up to the.
5:02
[MUSIC]
5:04
[LAUGH] wait, I can't tell you
where those go, it' a secret.
5:05
So, yeah.
5:08
Right now we have a physical set, but
we might some day shoot greenscreen.
5:08
Who knows?
5:12
[SOUND] Thanks for
watching the Treehouse Show.
5:13
To get in touch with the show,
reach out to me on Twitter or
5:19
email the show at show@teamtreehouse.com.
5:21
See you in the community.
5:24
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