Pairing and Giving Feedback

At first, pairing with others to solve challenges was in itself a whole new challenge. On one hand, it was fun to work on challenges with other people rather than just alone. On the other, I did find that the difficult part of solving the challenge was not the challenge itself, but in communicating with another person. Now that we are more than half way through Phase 0, I have gotten to know a few people who I not only enjoy pairing with and learn from, but whom I would consider friends.

I think one thing that was initially frustrating was assigning driver/navigator roles. Ultimately, that always ended up feeling more like student/teacher roles. It felt a little artificial to do that when both people are typing on a shared Stypi document. For example, telling the "driver" what to type was sometimes much less practical than simply showing them a line of code at times, the way our guides do during GPS sessions. This is something that has gotten easy to work out as we go along through the process of solving a challenge. As long as we can both agree on a way to work together that benefits both of us and keep the communication line open, it seems to go well.

Reading my feedback was mostly helpful and encouraging. I did feel like I got some conflicting feedback, which was confusing. I think I struggled initially to find the balance between being proactive during pairing and being cooperative. There was one session in which I felt like I really wanted to be helpful rather than just be a deadweight (which was how I felt around week 1), so I was intentionally about being assertive and trying to teach new things. Based on the feedback I got, that actually came off as overly persistent and not listening to the other person. I found that very discouraging because it was completely not my intention.

Since then, I have tried to find a between being assertive and cooperative. It is still a difficult line to find, but one thing I make sure to do is go in as prepared as I can be. I try to get familiar with the challenge as much as I can without actually doing it, and be very aware of what questions I do have so that I don't hold us back.

Writing feedback was initially hard but has gotten easier. One thing that was hard was keeping it anonymous. It's hard to be specific without giving yourself away. It's pretty easy to figure out who has given me feedback based on who says something like, "Thanks for showing me how to comment out a block of code!" I actually appreciate when I could tell which person was giving me feedback; it allows me to know what modifications I can make specifically for that person, given that people often have different preferences and opinions.

I also felt a little uncomfortable at first trying to give constructive criticism. Sometimes I felt like my peer did a much better job than I did, so I felt that I had no right to critique them. But now that I've seen how helpful it is to receive constructive feedback, I feel a little more comfortable with it.

I think the biggest thing I have had to learn is to be willing to be corrected. Instead of feeling deeply ashamed if someone has a piece of constructive criticism for me, I remember that they are not criticizing me as a person but trying to help me to more be effective as a programmer.