1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,870 [? ANGELIA: ?] Yeah. 2 00:00:00,870 --> 00:00:05,550 Hi, I'm [? Angelia ?] from Jakarta, Indonesia. 3 00:00:05,550 --> 00:00:06,550 BRIAN: Nice to meet you. 4 00:00:06,550 --> 00:00:07,720 ANGELIA: Yeah. 5 00:00:07,720 --> 00:00:10,200 My question is, I see, from the [INAUDIBLE],, 6 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:14,510 that Brian and David are really [INAUDIBLE] when they are teaching. 7 00:00:14,510 --> 00:00:19,110 So my question is how to develop such [INAUDIBLE],, like public speaking 8 00:00:19,110 --> 00:00:24,220 and teaching CS combining and [INAUDIBLE] and also technical skill. 9 00:00:24,220 --> 00:00:24,720 Thank you. 10 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:25,800 DAVID: Well, thank you. 11 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:27,840 You're too kind, I think. 12 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:32,130 So one of the reasons I, at least, went into teaching 20 years ago 13 00:00:32,130 --> 00:00:35,220 was honestly because I wanted to get better at public speaking. 14 00:00:35,220 --> 00:00:38,850 As you may have heard me say in one of CS50's classes, at the time, 15 00:00:38,850 --> 00:00:43,200 I had run for the undergraduate council at Harvard, 16 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:46,650 or the student government, if familiar-- student council at this school-- 17 00:00:46,650 --> 00:00:50,580 just kids that generally try to accomplish goals on campus. 18 00:00:50,580 --> 00:00:53,190 And I ran for this election and lost miserably. 19 00:00:53,190 --> 00:00:55,200 I did not win the election. 20 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:57,510 And part of that, I do think, was because I 21 00:00:57,510 --> 00:00:59,220 was very ineloquent at the time. 22 00:00:59,220 --> 00:01:00,930 I had trouble conveying my ideas. 23 00:01:00,930 --> 00:01:03,960 I performed very poorly in one of the on-campus debates. 24 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:08,220 And so I was really angry at myself that I wasn't better spoken at the time. 25 00:01:08,220 --> 00:01:11,070 And so I started volunteering as a teacher 26 00:01:11,070 --> 00:01:13,620 for one of the undergraduate student groups that 27 00:01:13,620 --> 00:01:16,200 allowed me to teach classes to other students, 28 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:19,650 like HTML, and CSS, and other such technologies. 29 00:01:19,650 --> 00:01:24,060 I then was a teaching fellow, or teaching assistant, my fall 30 00:01:24,060 --> 00:01:26,430 of my senior year of university. 31 00:01:26,430 --> 00:01:29,520 And then I was fortunate to be able to teach my own class 32 00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:31,500 spring of my senior year. 33 00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:35,280 And so it really, honestly, was just practice, practice, practice. 34 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:39,930 And teaching, particularly, really helped me organize my thoughts, 35 00:01:39,930 --> 00:01:42,600 allowed me an opportunity, again and again, 36 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,150 to try to communicate clearly to other people, 37 00:01:45,150 --> 00:01:49,440 more so than if you're just giving a speech or just presenting in a class. 38 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:52,290 Having to teach, I think, was really a key ingredient. 39 00:01:52,290 --> 00:01:54,540 And I think it helped, technically, that I just 40 00:01:54,540 --> 00:01:56,340 enjoyed what it was I was teaching. 41 00:01:56,340 --> 00:01:58,170 I really enjoyed programming. 42 00:01:58,170 --> 00:02:00,510 I really enjoyed computer science on the whole. 43 00:02:00,510 --> 00:02:02,580 And so being able to teach something I was 44 00:02:02,580 --> 00:02:05,520 passionate about just really helped. 45 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:07,425 Brian, what was the case for you? 46 00:02:07,425 --> 00:02:10,050 BRIAN: Yeah, I think I would agree with just about all of that. 47 00:02:10,050 --> 00:02:14,850 I think that practice is the key thing that helps make you a better teacher. 48 00:02:14,850 --> 00:02:18,450 Just getting experience, even if it's just explaining something to a friend 49 00:02:18,450 --> 00:02:19,470 or to a peer-- 50 00:02:19,470 --> 00:02:21,780 that helps you to start to think about how 51 00:02:21,780 --> 00:02:24,330 to take the ideas that might exist in your head 52 00:02:24,330 --> 00:02:27,290 and put them a little bit more precisely into words, 53 00:02:27,290 --> 00:02:30,570 and, in particular, to be able to explain something 54 00:02:30,570 --> 00:02:34,130 in a way that is accessible to someone who hasn't seen the topic before. 55 00:02:34,130 --> 00:02:36,690 But I often think about, when I was first 56 00:02:36,690 --> 00:02:39,990 learning some of the material, the types of explanations that worked and didn't 57 00:02:39,990 --> 00:02:43,260 work for me, and trying to come up with explanations 58 00:02:43,260 --> 00:02:46,620 that can help to explain very technical topics 59 00:02:46,620 --> 00:02:49,410 but, hopefully, in a bit of an easier-to-understand 60 00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:51,140 and more accessible way. 61 00:02:51,140 --> 00:02:53,850 And it definitely helps that the topics that I get to teach 62 00:02:53,850 --> 00:02:56,190 are things that I find really interesting. 63 00:02:56,190 --> 00:03:00,180 With the artificial intelligence class that was released this month on edX, 64 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:02,390 I had a lot of fun preparing that class and thinking 65 00:03:02,390 --> 00:03:04,890 about what topics I wanted to cover, because [INAUDIBLE] all 66 00:03:04,890 --> 00:03:08,220 topics that I personally find very interesting and exciting in computer 67 00:03:08,220 --> 00:03:09,338 science right now. 68 00:03:09,338 --> 00:03:11,880 And so the opportunity to be able to teach about those topics 69 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,300 and to talk them through in a lot of detail, I found very exciting. 70 00:03:15,300 --> 00:03:18,030 And so I hope that does come across in the classes. 71 00:03:18,030 --> 00:03:20,500 And I'm glad that you've been enjoying them. 72 00:03:20,500 --> 00:03:21,000