Carpentries Instructors’ meeting
- Monday, May 4, 2020
- 9:30-10:30 AM
Present:
Albin, Brooks-Kieffer, Everman, Russell, Trana, Zipper
Agenda
- Model and experiment with ways to improve online meetings while conducting our online meeting
- Methods included:
- Using a live shared document during the meeting (link upon request if you don’t have it)
- Trying out Zoom features for participation
- Icebreaker
- Participatory agenda-setting and -prioritizing
- Shared note-taking
- Soliciting end-of-meeting feedback
Discussions
Instructor training debrief
Two attendees attended Carpentries Instructor Training during April. One attendee may attend instructor training and had questions. The essence of the discussion was captured in the shared document and copied below:
- Instructor training focuses on method of teaching and less on the course material.
- Helpful to familiarize yourself with the coding language you are planning to focus on for the breakout room activities.
- Nothing needs to be memorized but familiarity with the lessons/episodes is helpful.
- Three activities after the training:
- discussion
- contribute to a lesson
- teaching demonstration
- Around 20-30 people in the training with two instructors.
- First half is about expectations, then activities.
- Mix of people with different background and skill level, areas that they are interested in focusing on.
- About Post training tasks:
- Discussions happen frequently
- Contribute to the curriculum through GitHub to show you can use that interface, doesn’t have to be accepted. Emphasizes that the lessons are community built and are open to contributions. Can do a pull request or submit an issue.
- Teaching demo, five minutes. Prepare an episode and they will pick the section they want you to teach from. Open note, but do need to have datasets loaded for the episode.
- Breakout rooms use Zoom. Good opportunity to share experiences, how to teach to an audience with a diverse skill set.
- Training opportunities come up frequently
Tips for improving online meetings
Discussion items included video platforms and setting behavior norms. The essence of the discussion was captured in the shared document and copied below. You may find some more specific info in the shared document. There may be future instances of a workshop on this topic at https://hackmd.io/rnVkhe5wSpaEx_Lv1Nef0Q.
About Zoom:
- Breakout rooms are a very positive feature but needs practice
- Desktop app settings are different from the web-based app for zoom, need to activate some of the feedback features to use them
Behavior norms:
- Setting guidelines for how to have a conversation.
- Using signals or reactions in zoom if they are activated. Doesn’t save the order of people responding.
- Leaving video on as much as possible.
- Staying efficient.
- Reminding people to mute yourself when not speaking to reduce background noise.
- Possibly put these guidelines in the code of conduct as addition
- Give participants guidelines for how to respond:
- raise your hand if…
- put this in the chat…
- Be intentional about how to participate and communicate in the meeting, also helps keep learners engaged in larger meetings with switching up the modes of interacting.
Announcements
Instructors’ meetings have been going on for a year - yay! Meetings have occurred at 9:30 AM on the first Monday of the month. Is this still a good time so we can set up a reoccurring meeting? Meeting length has usually been 90 minutes. Is the length of the meeting appropriate? Do we need to meet at the same frequency or more often? Send feedback to Jamene.
The University of Missouri is running an online Software Carpentry - Python Thursday and Friday, May 7-8. If interested in shadowing or seeing if you can help, email Jamene for the contact info.
Action Items
- JBK send link to Carpentries Instructor Training calendar to SZ (done)
- JBK watch for scheduling feedback and schedule a meeting series for the coming 12 months
- JBK poll KU instructors after observing Mizzou’s workshop for a possible mid-month debrief and workshop planning session.
Notes by EE, posted by JBK