So you're in an engineering org using something like Copilot. You want tips from science so YOU feel you are using them in a way that is efficient & grows your skills vs muting them. Or you want to help colleagues.
(Even if you profoundly disagree w/these tools, there is benefit in a harm reduction approach & knowing what helps the humans right here right now)
Honestly -- most software developers are strongly committed to being lifelong learners, but we are STRUGGLING to have learning CULTURES on teams. Tying learning time, effort, and goals to technological innovation is really key I feel. The moment of generative coding tools could be a moment to make this very clear inside of an org. We see learning culture-high devs report higher team effectiveness and productivity. Learning culture isn't a magical thing it comes from deliberate choices
@level2wizard I'm not sure if I'm totally following what you're saying. But if we start from the premise that what people are doing is constantly doing something you want them to learn to change, then this comparison is probably key to motivating a change.
@level2wizard I share your concerns!! Particularly because this is reinforced by emerging disparities in who is using these processes and tools and for what purpose, and I'm sure woefully inaccurate perceptions around that usage are the norm from much of leadership.
What do you think can help people inside this situation?
@level2wizard do you think that there might be some situations where people can influence the decisions of their teams? The feedback their junior colleagues get? The professional discourse and investments of what engineers spend their budgets on? Because I've seen those teams have a lot of power
So many "developers produce more quantities of code with copilot" studies so few "the patterns of interleaving and retrieval change depending on active vs passive consumption of generated solutions and we have like fifty years of research on this in learning science and so maybe we can apply it to make good recommendations about the best usage of generated work output" studies
@sue breaks my heart a wee bit because I had a similar idea when I was a co-founder of a dev tools startup hahaha I really wanted us to experiment with making some reflection/celebration moments inside the editor (our tool was helping people do documentation closer to the moment of writing code so we experimented with some in-editor things) including ones you could share with a small circle of peers. Would've loved to study that
This paradox remains wild to me. I think about my experiences working with teachers who make so little money and suffer so much and yet frequently support each other's learning and directly see the value of their own learning so much. And with developers we have some of the best resourced knowledge workers in the world, fully bought in to the idea of lifelong learning, and absolutely hiding it in the middle of their workplaces that rest on that learning
I mean I get it (we all struggle to do sustainable humane work in this era) but sometimes I do NOT get it (if EVEN IN THIS situation people struggle so...oh how powerful culture is)
I am so so so proud of @analog_ashley for funding, creating and leading the STARTneuro program. Incredible to see this amazing program have its first graduates.
"“STARTneuro is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says Vasconcelos. “I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t be where I am now if not for this program.”"
I've watched the years of effort, and constant, present, every-single-day mentoring that @analog_ashley does to run not a bandaid or a STEM program that lives in the abstract, but a deeply structural, long-term program that lives and breathes STEM education access within the people who live HERE, the students that need help HERE, the community building students need HERE. It is not done in a day it's done in years. And on top of that done with less funding than work like this deserves.
@analog_ashley is too humble & hard-working to talk much about all that she has done with this program & as a neuroscience educator. But anyone who has been involved with a program like this knows how hard it is & what it means to get funding for it, make it work & make impact on this kind of problem in one of the most elite & selective STEM pathways, where nearly all transfer students are cut off from consideration at even the initial entrypoints like working in undergrad lab positions.
I'm not involved in any way (except for sometimes hosting the scholars at a bbq at our house haha...and a lot of support to the program director), I just think this program is absolutely beautiful and more people should know about it. The future of science is for everyone.
@danilo I've been telling @analog_ashley to please pitch a talk about the insights of this program to a tech conference and she never believes me that people could find it so uplifting and interesting!!!