Teaching Web Design using the Spiral Teaching Method
September 5, 2016
The three coding languages of web design:
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
… are best taught using the spiral teaching method. As you know, the spiral teaching method uses a multi-pass approach, where you slowly introduce more detail with every pass. If you try to overload the student up front, you will lose way too many.
Spiral Teaching Applied to Teaching Web Design
Though a relatively simple coding language, HTML5 does have a few layers of complexity that include:
- tag attributes
- semantic meaning of tags
- tag nesting rules
… Etc.
In my experience teaching web design since 2003, I found it is best to introduce just one or two principles (of HTML) with each set of tags that I introduce. So on the first day, I would teach the very basic concepts of an HTML tag, and just the first few tags that make up a page:
- html
- head
- body
- p
These easy to understand tags are a great way to introduce the key concepts, so students can get a their first web page up and running easily.
Once this is done, you can start introducing more tags, and with each set of new tags, you can introduce new principles along the way. Learning new tags is fun, allows the students to exercise concepts from previous lessons, and creates a new canvas (if you will,) that you can use to gradually introduce the more complex concepts.
If you want to learn more, check out StudioWeb. My team and I, have been working with schools for over 5 years now, to deliver an amazingly easy web design training program.
Thanks!
Stefan Mischook
StudioWeb.com
