What is it & why self-paced learning?
At Turing College, self-paced learning means that learners can dictate the pace that they progress through projects. As each learner brings their own individual background and experience, we expect that different learners will need a different amount of time to master each topic and we structure our teaching model accordingly. Self-paced learning not only gives learners with differing levels of experience and knowledge a chance to attend our programs but also helps them to cultivate a mindset where they are conscious and responsible for their own progress. As learning is a life-long process for any successful professional, the ability to individualize and manage your own progress lies at the heart of what we want to teach at Turing College.
Self-paced learning does not mean, however, that learners have the opportunity to spend less than the pre-set time on per week (which can differ based on your funding options). Regular attendance and work are key - research has shown that this is one of the best predictors of success when it comes to finishing programs. If you notice that you are struggling to put in the required hours, get in touch with our team via the help chat function as soon as possible. It is our common goal to keep you motivated throughout the program. After all, it’s in everyone's best interest that you learn effectively, graduate on time and then get an amazing job. So be confident that if there are any difficulties, we will work together with you to find solutions. Learners receiving government funding should be extremely mindful about the time they spend learning, as we are required to log the time on our platforms and report it.
Finally, it is important to understand that learning in a self-paced environment is not something that most people are naturally good at. You should see it as a skill that you will be improving throughout the whole program (and afterward as well). Even the best of us have moments where we succumb to procrastination, laziness, or lack of motivation. Such struggles should not be seen as something to be ashamed of or something to hide - instead, we sincerely encourage you to view it as a challenge that we can work together to overcome.
Recommended weekly learning time
Our data so far suggests that the most common optimal amount of time learning per week is 15-30 hours. This can differ for some people, but our suggestion is to try to have this as a starting point and see if it works for you or if adjustments need to be made.
Be careful about setting goals that are too high — for example, if you try to spend 50 hours per week learning but get very inefficient after 30 hours, you might be tempted to force yourself to spend even more time the next week to ‘catch up’. However, this can very quickly lead to a negative-feedback loop — if your productive learning time is 30 hours, you will become even more irritated by not reaching your goals which can quickly lead to burn-out and loss of motivation.
Another thing to keep in mind is that for most people, it’s much more efficient to spend those 20-30 hours more evenly throughout the week as opposed to several extra busy days. This will prevent you from trying to learn too much at once which is usually inefficient.
We take Lithuanian public holidays off, during which our staff might not be available to help you and during which our regular meetings & events will not happen either. We also do not require you to study during these days, so the expected weekly hours will be reduced on certain weeks. You can find the list of holidays (marked in pink) here:https://www.kalendorius.today/nedarbo-dienos/2024
Important: as a bare minimum, learners need to meet in order to be eligible for the Endorsement or to maintain their scholarship is attending at least 1 learning event per week (stand-up, open session, project review, Virtual Classroom), unless you inform us about a vacation beforehand. UZT-funded learners have additional requirements.
Deadlines
Learners receiving any kind of scholarships or funding have mandatory deadlines which ensure a minimum pace of progression throughout the program. You can read more about them here.
How are attendance and progression tracked?
Even though our studies are remote-first, there are multiple activities throughout the day that help us and you track if you’re putting in the required effort each day.
The most important of these activities are:
Stand-ups. In these short meetings, each learner shares what they’ve worked on yesterday and what their focus for the current day will be. More info about daily stand-ups/wiki/spaces/TCLGX/pages/129237268. It is very strongly recommended to join at least 1 stand-up per week, as this helps you build a sense of community and create a better sense of accountability between peers.
Quizzes on the Turing Platform. These are for self-evaluation only and you won’t be required to attain a particular score to progress to the main project.
1-1 meetings with JTLs, STLs, and Turing Staff.
Submitting your projects. This is the main work that you will be submitting and which will require the most time. Making commits often is a good way to track your progress as well as to organise your work.
Attending/wiki/spaces/TCLGX/pages/129205356. Our system tracks how much time you spend on these. Keep in mind that peer reviews are an important part of the learning process, and not just a criteria you need to meet for grading.
Helping others via Zoom calls or in Discord voice channels. A strong partnership between learners is extremely encouraged, as this will allow you not only to get/give help now, but form useful connections that you will be able to use throughout your career. If during a standup you see that there’s a co-learner that needs help with something that you are already comfortable with - offer to jump on a call after the meeting and help them with whatever they are struggling with.
Being active on Discord. The ability to collaborate effectively is one of the skills most sought-after by employers. That’s why this will be something that we’ll be tracking closely so that we can promote you to the fullest with our hiring partners. Being able to present evidence of your ability to be a great team player, will definitely improve your chances of getting hired! This is also a good way of becoming qualified to/wiki/spaces/TCLGX/pages/129237295.
Being active in Virtual Classrooms. These are meant to create a collaborative learning environment where a mentor and peers are always ready to help you, similar to how live “seminar-type” classroom activities work. They also allow you to choose between rooms for focused study with minimal interactions, and rooms for more active discussions.
If our team notices that there’s a lack of activity from your end, we will try to be proactive and get in touch with you to know if there are any issues that we can help with.
Note: if you receive governmental funding, your exact time tracking rules may differ.
How to do self-paced learning efficiently?
Here are some tips on how you can optimize your learning process:
Make learning a regular habit. You can achieve this by creating a schedule for yourself. As Turing College has no lectures, and only a few fixed-time meetings, you can create a personal learning schedule that works for you. Ideally, you should have pre-set hours that work best for you for learning. By having such a schedule, you will not need to waste mental energy trying to decide when and for how long to study each day – even better yet, it will likely start feeling strange to not learn at that time!
Be competitive with yourself, not others. This means that you should judge the present effectiveness of your learning against your past progress and not against the progress of others. Using the progress of others to evaluate your speed of progress can be useful, but it should be done carefully. A good example of how to use the progress of others is the following: you can use your regular communication with your peers to give you a better understanding of what the average depth of knowledge for each topic should be. For example, if you are digging deeper into a topic than your peers, you should be aware of this. This will help you to make a more informed decision on how much time you want to spend on it. However, if someone is moving faster through the curriculum than you, it is not necessarily because you are doing something wrong. You could be performing fantastically when your starting point is taken into account. To sum up, don’t get stuck in unproductive comparisons - in Turing College your peers are your friends, not enemies and your main competitor is yourself.
Take breaks! A good way to structure them is the Pomodoro technique. We strongly recommend trying it out and finding a version of it that works for you. Learning things such as data science, data analytics or web development is a very mentally challenging task – if you are not careful, it can be extremely easy to burn out, leading to a state where no matter how much time you spend learning, new information will simply not be learned. Vary your activities, do something physical, reward yourself by doing something that you enjoy and what you find relaxing.
What do I do if I'm really good and easily understand the content?
If you are finding a particular topic easy, you should make a decision on how to approach it. There are two things you can do:
Move through the program quicker after you’ve done what's expected on that topic. This will allow you to finish the full program faster if that is your goal.
Spend more time on that topic by delving deeper into it. You can explore different connected topics (feel free to ask STL’s for guidance here), work on the project more so that you discover more than what the main requirements ask for, and help other learners who might be struggling with that topic (this is also a great way to learn - both the topic and your leadership skills). Also, if you discover interesting topics this way, let us know! We are constantly striving to improve our curriculum and would be very interested to hear what drives your curiosity and excitement to learn more. Helping us to shape our program is a great way to show initiative - a trait that is valued by employees. All of this will allow you to graduate Turing College with more knowledge, which in turn will put you in a better position to get a higher paying role afterward.
What do I do if I seem to be struggling to keep up with the suggested pace?
If you feel that you are struggling with the program and not progressing at the pace that you want to, here’s some guidance you can follow:
Mention this in the standup - this will also enable others to help you better;
Join open sessions, Virtual Classrooms and ask JTLs for help.
If you believe the program content is lacking and that this is what is holding you back, contact the Head of Education. Honest, timely feedback is one of our core values, so we will be grateful to hear your thoughts.
