On my end, staying focused on them actually learning from, vs just experiencing, agentic coding can be hard. I get excited about featuresideas, then my educator hat pulls back to consider how we consolidate actual skills. I'm immensely grateful that I have an Ed research view for my own grounding.

In terms of student engagement, it is going great. Testing has been the core theme of the first month. Some students are still coming to terms with how much they themselves need to do when they are testing for real. Still analyzing their journal entries on the topic, but should have more to say soon

I'd have to think a bit more about other differences (when the start of the semester isn't upon me). I do see why NamedTuples could feel more in line with the DCIC style, but I also see the challenges that students have jumping into full classes after the syntactic brevity of Pyret and Python.

I vaguely recall having problems with `typing` at the time (2019ish), and I didn't want to force it on the students. I also like dataclasses because they provide a lightweight use of the class concept. I was setting that up for my students because they were going from DCIC into a course on OO. >>

When I wrote the first version of the materials that became the early part of DCIC, multiple people who used Python in practice more than I did recommended data classes. I seem to recall trying NamedTuples a couple of years later. >>

graphic calling for education research as part of appreciating teachers

Appreciating teachers at all levels, today and every day. Let's show them some real support!

After working on this for ~8 months, I'm happy to say that we finally have a first version of the Bootstrap:AI curriculum! If you're a Bootstrap teacher, we're offering a free preview in April (check your emails). Looking forward to seeing teachers there!