In January 2023, I gave the class an assignment to go along with this video. The assignment had 2 parts. It had questions that went along with the video that the students needed to answer, as well as a requirement that, upon completing the video, they would polish the finished product to turn in a professional looking site.
Frankly, it was a disaster. The students complained a lot about this assignment, and many failed to turn anything in. This was quite disturbing to me because I had previously worked along with the video and thought this was going to be an “easy A” for most students. I also thought the value in learning WordPress was extremely high, so it was unfortunate that many students’ first impression was so poor.
As I reflect on what went wrong, and why it was so poorly received, there are a few areas I think were problematic.
- First of all, the assignment had too much to it. I think the students tried to do both the questions in the worksheet, as well as the coding along at the same time. This seriously divided their attention, added stress, and detracted from the opportunities to learn anything.
- Additionally, I was, admittedly, not extremely comfortable with WordPress myself. I had done all the work the students were given, I had a handle on it, but I also would not yet consider myself an expert. I think that was felt in the room.
- There was a part in the video where the theme he used was an older version than the one we installed. So, when he had a “set up wizard” going, we did not. This through many students through a loop.
- Lastly, many students who see themselves as programmers (which they should), felt that using wordpress was beneath them. In my younger years, I shared this mentality, though at this point in my development, I see that it is foolish to resist learning an available tool/concept if it can ultimately help you do more with less. I think, at least for myself, my resistance to wordpress was related to the very cumbersome experience of trying to create a wordpress site from the point of view of someone who created all pages by hand. When approaching wordpress in that way, it can feel extremely difficult to make changes to otherwise simple things.
Based on everything shared here, I can see that the approach to exposing the students to wordpress was not anywhere close to what I was hoping it would be. I cannot stress enough the value in wordpress, specifically for a young developer who is trying to put together a portfolio and make a few bucks, but I see that my first attempt to connect the students with it was a failure.
Perhaps in the future, I will start the web development year with wordpress (so before students really know anything about html/css). Maybe this could help to reduce frustration when trying to edit a website because the students will not have been doing it any other way leading up to it. I will also, most likely, make assignments much smaller and more structured in the future, to help reduce the confusion.
