A Day in the Life of a Teacher Who Codes: Week 0

Hello! My name is Kristi, and this is my second year teaching for . This year I have been placed at Pixar, something I’m just as excited about as the students. Each week this summer I’ll be writing about my experience as a so you can see how different it is from the other side. 

You may be asking yourself, “Why Week 0?” 

Two reasons:

1. It’s my prep week so classes haven’t started yet.
2. Because programmers start counting from 0. 

Week 0 is when my two TA’s, Amanda and Rhea, and I do everything we can to get ready for the summer.

Monday

It’s not time to go to Pixar yet, so today I’m working from home. The first thing I do after checking my email is look at Piazza. This is a forum for the teaching staff of all the Summer Immersion Programs to ask questions and get advice. Many teachers ask questions that are relevant for everybody, so it’s good to stay up to date on it. I spend a majority of the rest of the day going through all the documents GWC has provided for me, and bookmarking the most important ones. I quickly glance through the curriculum and start working on projects for Week 1. The last hour of the day I do a check-in via Google Hangout with my TA’s.

Tuesday

Today’s the day I get to go to Pixar! I have been waiting months for this. The meeting isn’t until 4pm, so I work from home all morning. I begin the process of going through lecture slides provided by GWC and updating them to match my teaching style and how I like to explain things. Finally, 2:30pm comes around and it’s time to make the journey to Pixar.

When I get there, I’m as excited as a kid on Christmas morning! We meet with Erin, Alyssa, and Addie, who will be helping us with anything we need. They give us a quick tour, and then show us the classroom. That is the moment it really hits me. This year is going to be completely different from last year. Up until this point I had pictured my old classroom at eBay. It scares me a little that I will have to come up with a new routine. After the tour, we discuss logistics for the summer and the “Meet and Greet” with the students and parents on Wednesday.

At 6pm it’s time to call it a day and drive home.

Wednesday

I’m working from home again this morning, mostly going through lecture slides and making sure I know everything about the projects the students will do. When 2:30pm hits, it’s time to once again make the journey to Pixar. Tonight is the Meet and Greet, and I want to be there by 4pm to help set up. We go over logistics again with Erin, and practice our introductions. At 5:30pm people start arriving, and I get very nervous about meeting the parents.

While everyone eats and mingles, we have them play . After that, we take them to a theater where we give an overview of GWC and talk about our coding background. Then it’s time for the classroom tour and we end the night with a screening of Finding Dory!

Thursday

Confession time: Teachers don’t know everything. 

Specifically, I don’t know much about robotics and circuits. For one week of the summer we’ll be working with , which I’m very excited about, though I barely know anything about them. I spend all of Thursday learning as much as I can about them so I can feel more confident in my ability to each that section.

Friday

The laptops are ready for us to check, so the TA’s and I meet with Erin at Pixar first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, some of the programs we need did not install correctly so we spend the day going through each laptop and installing them. While I took charge of this, Amanda and Rhea wrote personalized notes on post-its that they put on each student’s laptop. We also organize our classroom supplies, cleaned off the white boards, and discussed the agenda for Day 1. We finished installing programs on all but a few laptops, but decided to call it a day by that point. We went home excited for our first week!

Do you have a question for Kristi? Email us at !