arguments to tidy::gather

[michaellevy]

Students have been struggling with the arguments to gather, especially key and value.

[michaellevy]

The gather lesson still needs work. Perhaps one reason this has been tricky is that you need a new dataset for each run through, but the students need to see two or three before they try it on their own. They're just not getting what key, value are, how things move, etc. Having them download a single data folder instead of each dataset individually will facilitate this.

[michaellevy]

More tidyr feedback from HBS debrief:

• Still need another example. Maybe make a gapminder-wide DF with gdpPercap by year for one country. Teach that as the Intro to gather. Then blood as is, then have them do it on a new dataset.
• Use stocks dataset while teaching
  • Introduce lubridate, briefly, in stocks demo
  • Design exercises around blood data
• Designed Curveball of input that instructor trips over as opportunity to interact with students and ask for solutions -- engagement as well as problem solving
• Students tripped over read_csv diagnostic messages and thought that things were bad. Also did not connect looking at console message vs what was in their environment