Carpentries Instructors’ meeting
- Monday, April 5, 2021
- 9:00-10:00 AM
Present:
Albin, Braus (guest), Brooks-Kieffer, Deakyne, Koseva, Machado Stredel (guest), Russell, Thomas, Trana, Zipper
Agenda
Discussions
Debrief from Data Carpentry Social Sciences
Plus
- Only 3 no-shows out of 22 registered learners
- Successful partnership with IPSR to advertise the workshop
- First time offering Data Carpentry Social Sciences
- First attempt at offering Q&A office hours after each workshop session
- Attendance and engagement for learners was very good, especially considering that sessions were held Friday afternoons
- Learner discussion during R sessions was really lively and engaged
- Helpers fielded questions and shared knowledge of R
- Pace was good for most learners
- OpenRefine was exciting for learners and helpers alike
- Brief, informal debrief conversation among instructors, helpers, and host at the end of some workshop sessions was helpful; plus/delta topics were fresh
Delta
- Software installation office hours got zero attendance
- Q&A office hours got attendance from 1 learner in 1 of the sessions - a big time commitment for little engagement
- Participation in the anonymous Qualtrics survey dwindled over the 3 sessions
- OpenRefine installation was difficult for some learners; minimalist instructions on the Data Carpentry software setup page didn’t help. Stalled the first day of the workshop for a bit.
- Frustration at the very basic content of the spreadsheet lesson; feeling that this took time away from OpenRefine
- Some learners reported getting lost during OpenRefine and feeling that the pace was too fast
- In R, things moved more slowly than expected, so didn’t get to ggplot
- Use of the Console pane in RStudio made it challenging to copy/paste code or quickly fix mistakes. Learners didn’t get to see writing a script in a file in the Source pane and then saving it for future use.
- R session was derailed a few times by questions that were about to be answered in an upcoming section of the lesson
The group also discussed possible ways to avoid or postpone software installation woes, such as by using RStudio Cloud, Jupyter Hub, or Docker images. These could help with software during a workshop. Their disadvantage is that learners don’t leave the workshop with the software on their computer to continue their work. Add a tutorial on Docker images to the list of helper topics for future professional development.
Instructor Training Q&A
Folks anticipating taking instructor training in coming months asked questions about instructor training and The Carpentries:
What is the biggest difference between prior teaching training/experience and teaching according to The Carpentries?
- Short amount of time with learners in a workshop; going in-depth in a topic with learners who don’t have a baseline (that you know of) or any prerequisites. Workshop has no grades, so learner investment can be very different from students in a for-credit course.
- Learners are there because they want to be, not because they have to fulfil a requirement. The audience is usually very interested, but everyone has their own objectives for attending the session. As the instructor, you can’t fill everyone’s needs, which can be challenging to accept.
- Instructor’s mindset is different - in a workshop, need to cover less material more thoroughly, where in a for-credit course the emphasis might be on covering every topic, even if some coverage is sketchy.
Is there a Carpentries culture to pass on?
- Opportunities to chat with other Carpentries instructors occur in all kinds of venues; it’s a really strong and generous community. Community Discussions are outlined in The Carpentries Handbook.
- Debrief discussion is part of Carpentries culture and part of the instructor checkout process.
- Element of practice - as an instructor, as a learner, as an individual.
- Considering cognitive load of learners; taking pauses for recap and explaining why a topic is relevant and important for learners’ goals
- Community love of learning; a win for instructors, learners, and helpers because we learn something every time
On being new-ish to a topic as an instructor:
- This is actually better from a standpoint of teaching novice learners; you will be more aware of things that trip up new learners than instructors who are experts in a particular topic.
Share a helpful tip
Tabled due to time.
Notes by JBK