Teaching toolkit: the boilerplates that helped 150+ developers ship
At General Assembly I taught and supervised software engineering cohorts. The most durable thing I built there was a set of starter projects and teaching APIs that made every student's first real app less likely to fail.
My roleLead instructor
Timeline2019 - 2024 · Chicago / Remote
BuildReact · Express · Mongoose · Django REST · LiquidJS
OutcomeGraduation rates rose from about 60% to 85%
Students were getting stuck on setup
Project weeks kept going wrong in the same place: students burned their first days on authentication, folder structure and wiring an API, and arrived at the actual feature exhausted and behind.
I built starter projects that already handled authentication, structure and API wiring, so students could spend project weeks on the features they were there to learn.
What I did
Built the boilerplates. React Auth, Express + Mongoose Auth API, Express + Mongoose + LiquidJS, and Django REST Framework starters, each with auth, structure and documentation in place.
Built a teaching API. The Library API: seed scripts, curl scripts and endpoint tables, used to teach API consumption in React, jQuery and vanilla JavaScript.
Taught with real apps. Lesson projects like the Monster Pets MERN app gave students a complete, working reference to read before building their own.
Led the team. Supervised about ten instructors and assistants across remote cohorts, and led the rollout of emergency remote teaching on the fly when Covid-19 lockdowns hit mid-cohort.
150+Developers taught
400+Student projects consulted
85%Graduation rate, up from about 60%