Instructor Training

Online

Oct 25/26, Nov 1/2, 2021

1:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET

Instructors: Vanessa Gonzalez, Mike Trizna, Luis Villanueva

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 Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Software 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.

Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Software 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. The link to use for this event will be delivered to registrants via email approximately one week before the start of your scheduled training.

Requirements

Participants should bring a laptop that is Internet connected and has a functioning browser. If you have it, a device for recording audio and video (mobile phones and laptops are OK) is useful as throughout the two days, we are going to record one another teaching in pairs or threes. It does not have to be high-quality, but it should be good enough that you can understand what someone is saying.

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/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 triznam@si.edu for more information.


Preparation

Please 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

Day 1 (Oct 25)

13:00 Welcome
13:30 Building Skill with Practice
14:30 Break
14:45 Expertise and Instruction
15:30 Memory and Cognitive Load
16:10 Building Skill with Feedback
16:30 End of Day One

Day 2 (Oct 26)

13:00 Motivation and Demotivation
14:00 Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
14:40 Break
14:55 Teaching is a Skill
15:55 Wrap-Up and Homework
16:30 End of Day Two

Day 3 (Nov 1)

13:00 Welcome Back
13:10 Getting Started on Instructor Certification
13:40 The Carpentries: How We Operate
14:25 Break
14:40 Live Coding Is a Skill
15:45 Preparing to Teach
16:30 End of Day Three

Day 4 (Nov 2)

13:00 More Practice Live Coding
13:45 Working With Your Team
14:55 Break
15:10 Launches and Landings
15:50 Putting it Together
16:10 Wrapping Up
16:30 End of Training!

Etherpad: https://pad.carpentries.org/2021-10-25-instructor-training.
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.