Carpentries Instructors’ meeting
- Monday, September 9, 2024
- 9:00-10:00 AM
Present:
Brooks-Kieffer, Conway, Hanson, Kisielinski, Sanderson
Announcements
None
Agenda
- Debrief Python workshop August 14
- Fall and Spring workshop plans
Discussions
Python workshop
Workshop attendance was about half of registration (25 registered, 14 attended) - this is disappointing to see for an in-person workshop where registration filled so quickly. Be sure that learners are receiving reminders for their attendance or cancellation. The workshop also coincided with the first day of school for many Lawrence families; this might have impacted attendance.
The instructors’ pivot to Google CoLab when Nautilus stopped working for a while went really well. The pivot to a platform where the workshop data wasn’t present really highlighted how extra the Pandas part of the lesson material is - most of it got cut because of the switch to CoLab. Learners commented that they felt this section was “tacked on” and not necessary. Other comments included that the pace sped up too much toward the end of the day. Compared this lesson (Python Gapminder) to some of the Data Carpentry lessons - this one is a weird hybrid of base Python and Pandas that could be better organized.
In the future, we could pick and choose Python lesson materials to focus on only base Python or only Pandas, or offer both in a 1.5 day or 2 day workshop. Having a longer workshop would give learners more time to process, ask questions, and complete exercises or activities such as a mini project.
Fall and Spring workshop plans
All workshop plans aren’t viable until after mid-October. Brian would like to teach R again and offer RNASeq again (tangential to the Carpentries group). Brian is also interested in the R for Reproducible Analysis incubator lesson; Jamene indicated that we’ve taught this once before and can point to debrief notes if desired. Katie is also up for R again and has a flexible schedule this fall.
Caroline is available again for workshops, mostly Genomics, any R, RNASeq. She has more availability in the spring. Taylor is available and can look through lessons to see if anything is appealing.
In summary:
- Python in the fall: talk to Meg
- R of some flavor later this fall
- Genomics in early Spring; this one takes more advance planning because of the winter break, so we would need to decide dates by late October.
Notes by JBK, posted by JBK