While at Moat Academy boot camp, we usually recommend 4-6 hours of private study daily; if this is done the right way, you will be amazed at the level of what you can do!
Learning is fun and should be enjoyed.
Step 1: Understanding the underlying principles and concepts in the subject area
It is strongly advised that you don’t pile up your studying i.e don’t wait till the next day or two before studying the materials learnt for the day. After the day’s workshop, rest and relax then pick up all the materials for the day, try to understand them (we don’t encourage mere memorization, rather understanding). If you find out that you didn’t really get an aspect well, please don’t call for help immediately ( apply the 20-minutes rule i.e ponder on it up to 20 minutes and recall the explanation given in the class but don’t stay on it beyond 20 minutes , otherwise you end up struggling and more confused). Get on the slack group and share your grey areas and you will receive help.
We also advise that you don’t pick any external material ( be it online resources, you tube video etc ) except it was recommended, in order to establish your understanding on the subject area as their own explanation may come from a different line of thought from our curriculum , hence you get more confused and muddle up the materials.
Step 2: Review all Classwork’s solutions to your understanding
After you have established your understanding on the subject, take a good review at the solutions to the various class exercises: deconstruct /dissect it to your understanding
Step 3: Use a Pen and Paper to solve the Class Exercises without taking a look at the respective solution
We will advise you to work with just pen and paper at this stage as it will build your proficiency and prepare you for an interview process where you may be required to provide solution without access to a system.
Please, see if you are able to solve the classwork and compare your written solution to what was done in class… identify bugs if any.
Step 4: Run your hand-written codes
You can now transfer you code to a text editor/ IDE and see if it gives you the desired output. If not, apply the 20 minutes rule, try to debug it (remember, debugging makes you a better programmer). If you still find it difficult achieving desired result, leave it for a while, come back to it and go over it again. Please call for help if you still do not get desired results: get on the slack group and upload your code snippet for help with troubleshooting.
Step 5: Tinker with your Solution
Experiment with the class work: manipulate the codes to see different possibilities and identify the ones that will not produce the desired results.
Step 6: Solve Problems
After you have been able to solve the class work on your own with well established understanding, proceed to do the assignment / practice questions for the day and follow step 4 and step 5.
Step 7: Create something
With what you know now, think out something you can do with this knowledge or what has already been implemented on an existing website / web application and create it ( remember, you are a developer. You acquire knowledge to develop things!).
Step 8: Pick up external materials and broaden your knowledge
This is the stage we recommend that you pick any credible online resources and videos etc to complement your knowledge. There are so many things to learn in any given subject in software development sphere so, we will encourage you to add more to your knowledge and discover new possibilities to share with others!
