Innovative Instructional Principles

As a Computer Engineer my whole professional life, I had some key mentors and experiences that helped me progress over the decades. As I developed the concept for wpPluginCollege, I tried to think through the factors that helped me move forward, as well as the negatives that held me back from time-to-time. I have synthesized my experience into the three guiding principles behind everything we do in the lab to contribute towards our students’ success:

Principle #1 – Keep The Journey Fun and Exciting

So many people drop out of technology-related courses because the material seems too dry and difficult. I want this to be as interesting and encouraging to you as possible. I also purposely designed wpPluginCollege so that remains a great experience for me as well.

  • Yes, you have to learn syntax and commands and logical structures, but there are real strategies to help keep you on-track
  • Our personalized learning lab approach cuts out most of the ‘I am starting out and don’t know where to begin’ issues
  • Keep the courses all hands-on means you will be doing real programming on real plugin designs
  • Because we are using WordPress as our development framework, we will be harnessing the powerful commands and functionality that thousands of others have created before us. That relieves us from reinventing the code wheel. Now we can focus on higher level things.
  • You will start getting those ‘aha’ moments, even in the jump-start level lessons. My aim is to grab your attention and get you to the point where your creativity can be unleashed.

Principle #2 – Keep the complexity from becoming overwhelming

When you learned to ride a bike, your parent or friend didn’t hand you a set of plans, some tools, and a box or steel tubing and rubber. You got a bike and someone probably ran along side holding you to stabilize things. Yes, you feel off a few times. But you managed to get back on and eventually you could ride. Why don’t we try to do the same approach with learning programming.

  • Our leaning lab means that you get your own WordPress development site, enhanced with plugins that get you started coding in minutes. No more procrastination over which IDE, code editor, or other ‘big’ up-front decisions. You will be able to progress to those things after we get you started.
  • We painstakingly test, test, and test again, all the code examples in our courses. WordPress, PHP, jQuery, MySQL, and all the other parts of the framework we are using change. New versions, bug fixes, and security patches come out all the time. We are continuously monitoring and testing our code examples so you can relax and just learn. No more hours ans days wasted trying to get some code from Stackoverflow or some book to work.

Principle #3 – Encourage Non-Linear Thinking

While we are building upon the thousands of hours of work that has been put into the languages and framework that makes up WordPress, we are really on a voyage of creativity. I want every student to realize their potential.

  • Use all modern tools at our disposal to encourage brainstorming and creating new ideas for plugins. This includes dreaming up whole new types of uses for plugins as a means of transforming the Internet.
  • Solve problems (big and small) that provide real value to our plugin users (be they customers, WordPress community members, or anonymous website visitors).
  • To be part of the 21st century technology revolution, by realizing human potential is limited only by our imaginations. Software represents the current form of technology and it is up to all of us to build a better world out of the tools we have at hand or can invent.
  • Try to instill confidence in our students so they have the courage to face technological changes and personal limitations – to empower them to push beyond conventional boundaries.

These principles might seem a bit lofty, but we need to think big if we are to create value for others. WordPress plugins are multipliers that can make a single skilled programmer have an enormous impact on a community or a market. I know you can do it!

Jamie Robe, Computer Engineer and wpPluginCollege Founder