Instructor Training

Online

9-10 June 2021

9:00 am - 5:00 pm PDT

Instructors: Erin Becker, Jeff Oliver

Helpers:

General Information

The course is aimed at everyone who is interested in becoming a better teacher. In particular, this training is aimed at those who want to become Software Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Data Carpentry Instructors, run workshops and contribute to The Carpentries training materials. You don't currently have to be an instructor or a teacher to attend this workshop, but you do need to be willing and committed to becoming one and to improving your teaching techniques.

Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry's mission is to help scientists, researchers, and librarians get more research done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic lab skills for scientific computing. This hands-on two-day workshop covers the basics of educational psychology and instructional design, and looks at how to use these ideas in both intensive workshops and regular classes.

The workshop is a mix of lectures and hands-on lessons where you practice giving a short lesson using approaches learned and implement some of the teaching techniques which we will discuss. This is training for teaching, not technical training; you do not need any particular technical background, and we will not be teaching that. This workshop is based on the constantly revised and updated curriculum.

Where

Online

This is an online event. We will meet using the online videoconference software Zoom. You will need to download and install their client to connect with your instructors.

Requirements

Participants should bring a laptop that is Internet connected and has a functioning browser.

Please note that after this course is over, you will be asked to do three short follow-up exercises online in order to finish qualifying as an instructor: the details are available at https://data-lessons.github.io/instructor-training/14-checkout/. If you have any questions about the workshop, the reading material, or anything else, please get in touch.

Code of Conduct

All participants are required to abide by The Carpentries Code of Conduct.

Contact

Please email ebecker@carpentries.org or jcoliver@arizona.edu for more information.


Preparation

Please read the following before the workshop begins:

  1. The Science of Learning
  2. The Carpentries 2020 Annual Report

Please also read through one episode of one of The Carpentries lessons below carefully, so that you can do some exercises based on it on the first day of the class. An episode is one page of a lesson.


Training Materials and Schedule

Please see this site for course material and tentative schedule.


Day 1

09:00 Welcome
09:30 Building Skill with Practice
10:30 Morning Break
10:45 Expertise and Instruction
11:30 Memory and Cognitive Load
12:15 Building Skill with Feedback
12:35 Lunch
13:35 Motivation and Demotivation
14:35 Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
15:15 Afternoon Break
15:30 Teaching Is a Skill
16:30 Wrap-up and Homework for Tomorrow
16:50 Finish

Day 2

09:00 Welcome Back
09:10 Checkout Process
09:40 The Carpentries: How We Operate
10:25 Morning Break
10:40 Preparing to Teach
11:25 Working With Your Team
12:35 Lunch
13:35 Live Coding Is a Skill
14:40 More Practice Live Coding
15:25 Afternoon Break
15:40 Launches and Landings
16:20 Putting it Together
16:40 Wraping Up
16:50 Post-Training Survey
17:05 Finish

Etherpad: https://pad.carpentries.org/2021-06-09-ttt-online-PDT.
We will use this Etherpad for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.

Surveys

Before attending the workshop, please fill out our pre-training survey.

After the workshop, please fill out our post-training survey.