Instructor Notes
Outline from ITB Online Teaching Onboarding:
Etherpad template: https://pad.carpentries.org/ITTB_online_template
Challenges faced by Instructors
- pacing: more important than ever to go slowly; also harder than ever because online moves slower
- communication: feedback indicates that Instructors leave uncertain about whether they successfully engaged learners. Have to work harder to hear from learners online.
- class size: many groups have been ignoring our advice on keeping online workshops small. There is often institutional pressure to do so. We’d like them to resist!
- slow workshops and anxiety over quality probably both contribute to
low response rates on post-assessment. We really want Instructors to
find time to distribute surveys before sending people away.
Work in progress – as always but especially with new materials, contributions invited!
Overall structure:
- Breaks: designed for 1 x 15 min, can try 3 x 5 min but keep to time
- “Activity 0” = Zoom hosting
- If you have any groups of 4, 4th group members need to be moved during Activity 0 because time doesn’t allow for 4. They can complete Activity 0 during the 4th session (see table below)
- some participants don’t feel the need to participate (Zoom experts) – it’s good to ask about this first to give them a chance to opt out
Modeling introductions
Timing is (of course) tight
- if you have 4 groups, you must preserve time for all 4 activities.
- Content between activities can be more or less interactive, depending on time
- Zoom questions in the initial overview can be punted to Activity 0? (Maybe handled in etherpad then?)
- Cloud instance material is optional
Activity 1 overview
- Purpose is to think through technical aspects of communications online and identify potential failure points, solutions
- Challenging to find time to debrief, but important. Making sure they report in the etherpad during breakouts helps to debrief quickly if need be.
Activity 2 overview
- Purpose is to prepare participants to empathize with learner experience, then orient towards introducing a workshop in a way that will support those learners.
- The activity itself isn’t particularly well-matched to the introductory text. Maybe could be a different activity in the future. But feedback indicates that it’s fine and people enjoy the practice introducing their online workshop here.
- Group roles require a reminder.
- Minimal debrief time is ok here – better to spend that time in the lead-up thinking about learner challenges.
Activity 3 overview
- Purpose is to prepare Instructors for the additional planning load and team coherence necessary to make a good online workshop function.
- It refers them to the planning checklist, which can be overwhelming, but we want them to know about it and figure out how to cope with that now.
- Activity has been updated to ask them to find single examples of things that can be planned asychronously, require a meeting etc.
- Unlikely to have time to debrief.