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Teaching Python

Episode 30: Teaching Adult Learners

In this episode, Kelly and Sean speak to Reuven Lerner about how to teach adult learners and people switching to Python from other languages. Reuven is a corporate trainer of Python and Data Science. He helps developers around the world learn how to code in Python. As fellow teachers, we dive into the similarities and differences of teaching adults versus students. What works? What is new and interesting?

Our guest, Reuven Lerner, is a full-time Python trainer. In a given year, he teaches courses at companies in the United States, Europe, Israel, and China — as well as to people around the world, via his online courses.

Reuven created one of the first 100 Web sites in the world just after graduating from MIT’s computer science department. He opened Lerner Consulting in 1995, and has been offering training services since 1996.

Reuven’s monthly column has appeared in Linux Journal since 1996, and was a panelist on the Freelancers Show podcast from 2015 - 2019. He is also the CTO of Rent Like a Champion, an event-based home-rental company based in Chicago, Illinois.

Reuven’s most recent book is “Python Workout,” a collection of Python exercises with extensive explanations, published by Manning.

Reuven’s free, weekly “Better Developers” newsletter, about Python and software engineering, is read by more than 10,000 developers around the globe. His “Trainer weekly” newsletter is similarly popular among people who give corporate training.

Reuven has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from MIT, and a PhD in learning sciences from Northwestern University. He lives in Modi’in, Israel with his wife and three children.

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