Editing Mentoring (section)

== FAQ ==

;How do I help?: Some people who are struggling will not ask for help. We encourage mentors to reach out to students and ask them how things are going by walking around to every single person to ask, “How are you doing? What are you working on? Show me what you’re doing.” Don't wait for students to ask! Simply giving them the opportunity to talk through a problem, even if you don't give them advice, can be a useful part of learning. Very often, you'll find stuck learners just staring at their screens.

;How much should I help?: Some. But be careful not to just give away the answer, to focus too much on elegance or technical correctness. Be careful not to overwhelm the learners. Learners are usually trying to get something to work ''at all'' and it's more important to get folks to a solution than the insist that they do in the Right Way™. Our goal is to get students to write correct code that they understand. Once they have a solution, you can share alternative ways! A good clarifying question is very often all a student needs and the best thing you can provide.

;What if I miss the morning lectures?: If you're missing the morning sessions, that's OK, but ''please do'' look over the morning lecture notes and cheatsheets to get a sense for what students have been exposed to. For example, we're intentionally not going to cover objects, classes, iterators, list comprehensions, or recursion in ''any'' of the sessions so bringing these things up while you're mentoring students might overwhelm and confuse participants. By no means are you restricted to ''only'' mentioning things we've covered in lecture. Sometimes showing a student a shortcut, a useful function, or a new trick can be instructive, appropriate, and helpful! Take 5-10 minutes to familiarize yourself with what we've covered and use your judgment as you work with the learners!