Coding career accelerator and mentorship programs like CodeBreakers face unique challenges to educate and prepare students for coding interviews. CodeBreakers aims to provide a top-notch learning experience but struggled to provide material for a wide range of student needs. Today, let’s take a look at how Educative alleviated these concerns and offers a beneficial supplement to education, empowering organizations of all sizes to focus on coaching.
Curious what makes Educative different from other online learning platforms? Check out Getting Acquainted with Educative: why we’re different
THE CHALLENGE#
When CodeBreakers began their software development mentorship program, CEO Darek Johnson created resources on Teachable for candidates with a strong background in programming. He wanted to progress students to advanced concepts and technical interview preparation. But as the company’s student population grew, CodeBreakers noted significant educational gaps in computer science fundamentals, making it challenging for students to progress.
Eager beginners were not ready for this level of instruction, and they lacked proper preparation to get coaching. Some students needed attention on basics, like the fundamentals of Python, while others yearned to tackle complex concepts. Darek reports that “many students felt lost on our resources”, and this halted advancement.
CodeBreaker’s team struggled to keep students on track to progress, limiting their talented coaches and business endeavors. In fact, the CodeBreaker team had to postpone other business responsibilities to produce beginner material. Creating that content takes a significant amount of time, slowing down their objectives. “Our coaches are motivated because they like helping new students learn. But it gets boring for them to teach the basics," explains Darek.
This all changed when CodeBreakers discovered Educative, first recommended to them by their students.
“Several of our students found Educative on their own. They had a positive experience, so we piloted it, and now everyone gets a copy.”
- Darek Johnson, CEO of CodeBreakers
THE SOLUTION#
According to Darek, getting started with Educative was simple and effective, immediately empowering students to get up to speed on the fundamentals with a simple login. Now, all students gain access to hand-selected Educative courses to supplement CodeBreakers’ material. Now, students can move through the program seamlessly.
“The resources are very approachable and written in a way that a beginner can understand," Darek reports. Using Educative has also empowered instructors to refocus their attention and efforts. “We don’t have to invest to create the content that Educative provides. This saves so much time.” It became clear that their team would perform at a higher-rate with Educative bolstering their efforts.
“Educative helps prepare our students for our resources, and it saves us time. Moreover, there are enough courses on Educative that even if a student isn’t quite ready for an advanced one, I can redirect them to another resource within Educative”.
- Darek Johnson, CEO of CodeBreakers
RESULTS AND NEXT STEPS#
Since incorporating Educative in their curriculum, CodeBreakers has seen an increase in student success and satisfaction. For example, they’ve used Educative’s highly-rated Python interview courses, such as Python 101 and Grokking the System Design Interview, to move students through the program in just three months. Alongside Educative, CodeBreakers scaled their company to a wider reach: they can now accept students with a lower programming background.
In addition, CodeBreaker’s team of coaches now focuses on what matters most for their business: mentorship. “We can now focus on more important parts of the business like networking and 1:1 coaching,” the CEO explains. With his experience organizing a coding accelerator, Darek Johnson even thinks that Educative could serve to reimagine the very structure of a coding bootcamps altogether. Educative offers the platform for instruction so that coding career programs can turn to that important work of mentorship. “I see a lot of bootcamps provide cookie-cutter curriculums. What they should be offering is guidance".
Educative makes that possible.
“Students are now more prepared for our resources on algorithms, and coaches have mentioned that fewer students struggle with the basics. Students have shared many positive experiences.”
- Darek Johnson, CEO of CodeBreakers
Happy learning!
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