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Reflection 2025-04-10

I enjoyed working with the group. I've seen half of the groups have fun by making Mermaid graphs and had short chats with most of them.

I was hesitant to put them in groups of 2, but I just mindlessly followed the pedagogic literature and did so. It was the right choice.

My biggest mistake was a planning mistake: instead of having a break from 9:50-10:00, I gave them a break from 9:50-10:10. As I already said so, I stuck with that too long break. Due to this, there was not enough time for the GitHub exercise at all. I did improvise by asking people with a GitHub account to demonstrate. These three learners did so and did have enough time to publish a mermaid graph, so that is at least something. But it was not a complete session at all :-/

Next time, only do mindmap and flowchart: it gives a lot of air to the course that the learners can use. I expect that the learners write down that they needed more time, and I already agree. Note that I already simplified the course material to have more time for exercises.

  • [x] Use schedule below
Time Description
9:00 Your first Mermaid experience
9:40 Mermaid terminology
9:50 Break (keep BO rooms open)
10:00 Continue and (optional) Publishing your graphs
10:20 Evaluation and short break
10:30 End

Evaluation results

All confidences)

Average confidence per question

Confidences per question

  • Nice course, great energy :)
  • is nice to do exercises together, they were well planned and organised. much better than a boring ppt
  • I have enjoyed this course. I have learned to use different softwares and improved in my visual presentations. I would recommend this course to other PhD students.
  • Great way to learn about this tool! I think it could maybe be improved by making it more relevant to our own research.

Great idea! I change the focal topic to 'Your own research'

  • [x] For the mindmap and flowchart, use your own research as the topic to associate on

  • It is a really useful course, and interactive.

  • Great session! it was very dynamic and hands on. The instructor's teaching style is also very nice.
  • Interactive session. Like it!
  • Nice and clear structure. Enough time for most exercises. I like the small break-out rooms. No need to explicitly suggest how to interact in the break out rooms. I understand the wish for people to turn on camera but would prefer it to be voluntary still.

I think 'No need to explicitly suggest how to interact in the break out rooms' is interesting: I do this because other people get stressed out because of not being able to say 'Let's read first'. I guess this learner has no problems with saying so. I agree that such things should not need saying, but I feel in practice -when working with people from many different cultures- I need to do so.

The 'I understand the wish for people to turn on camera but would prefer it to be voluntary still' is another good point. And I should have been more clear with my camera policy here: I simply forgot to say 'If it makes you too uncomfortable, please keep off your camera'. Agreed!

  • [ ] Don't forget: learners are allowed to not have a camera on