Carpentries Instructors’ meeting
- Monday, March 7, 2022
- 9:00-10:00 AM
Present:
Albin, Brooks-Kieffer, Dwyer, Everman, Kindred, Kisielinski, Koseva, Machado-Stredel, Russell, Thomas
Agenda
- Debrief Data Carpentry Genomics
- Any planning for other workshop topics this Spring/Summer
- Instructor teaching requirements and Q&A
Discussions
Debrief Data Carpentry Genomics
- + Went well, with lots of engagement from participants
- + Learners praised the Etherpad and the whole workshop for meeting them where they were at in terms of coding
- + Having learners turn on cameras, introduce themselves, say what they wanted out of the workshop helped break the ice to encourage engagement and decrease intimidation
- + Having 3-5 minute exercises taking place in small groups in breakout rooms; learners could work together and remain engaged
- + Boryana performed shell magic by batch-installing R packages on all learner AMI instances the morning of Day 3; saved time and errors
- + Screensharing by learners when encountering problems was helpful for other learners having the same problem
- + Instructors handled technical glitches smoothly so learners could keep working - specifically pasting commands into the Etherpad during Elizabeth’s connectivity issues
- Δ Elizabeth’s technical issues maintaining an ssh connection to her AMI instance from on campus was a giant pain; the problem is now with KU IT Tier 3
- Δ Day 3 RNA seq lesson in R felt rushed (it felt rushed last time, too); next time would prefer to add a half day for more time with R or offer R separately
- Δ Tidy data lesson may be too long; navigating the NCBI SRA database is good information but may not be necessary compared to lesson material elsewhere that needed more time
- Δ We’d prefer attendance not be interrupted by snow and school closures, but coped well by recording the affected day for registered learners only
Regarding updating R and R packages on KU-owned computers, Samantha reports that this is getting difficult and will be something to watch out for the next time we offer an R workshop.
Other 2022 workshops
- OCR/Bash Shell unofficial workshop for IDRH in late April; planning is underway (Kaylen & Jamene)
- Git/GitHub (or GitHub/Git) as a precursor to Intermediate/Advanced R (#3) is TBD - we may run out of time
- Intermediate/Advanced R with RMarkdown and possibly the RStudio GitHub integration; planning meeting happens later this week, with firm date to come (Sam T. and Sam Z.).
- Data Carpentry Ecology - Idea to use this curriculum for a modular workshop series this fall. Instructors and timing very much TBD. We have not taught this full curriculum before, and it’s a good one: data organization in spreadsheets, data cleaning in OpenRefine, R and Python options, and SQL. Sam T. very tentatively has an interest in the SQL lesson.
Instructor teaching requirements and Q&A
Reminders:
- If you need an extension on your 90 day checkout tasks period, ask! The Carpentries is very flexible on this as long as you check in with them before your deadline.
- Midwest Carpentries Community Call occurs monthly with folks in the larger Midwest and Great Plains regions. Now counts for completing the discussion task for instructor checkout!
- After completing certification, instructors should teach part of an official workshop within 12 months
- The Carpentries is always looking for volunteer instructors for workshops organized by The Carpentries. Subscribe to the Instructors mailing list to get regular updates to this spreadsheet
- All Carpentries mailing lists and discussion groups are hosted at Topicbox and available for browsing or subscribing
Q: What is the process for instructor training and being more involved? It looks complicated! Also, for folks looking at career next steps, is it worth starting a new thing now? Would I be alone in doing this at a new location?
A: So many good questions!
- The instructor training process feels daunting, but isn’t actually once you get started
- Use one of KU’s instructor training seats for quicker access to an instructor training workshop (contact Jamene)
- In terms of being a Carpentries instructor, there are other groups at other universities; people instruct at other universities, and you can view this as a way to increase your community and network
- Also see above RE The Carpentries looking for workshop instructors in all kinds of locations
- When workshops are in-person, you can use these opportunities to make a site visit to a place you might be interested in studying or working without having to pay for your travel
- Being a Carpentries Instructor can become part of your career development, showing being a part of a community and having/using a teaching skillset. Potential employers either recognize this credential and the work or they’re interested in knowing more
- The community is really open; able to find Carpentries wherever you are
- Positive comments from learners at workshops are really motivating. For the most part, instructors are volunteers who do this because they believe in it
Notes by ERE, posted by JBK