Summary and Setup

Welcome to The Carpentries Learner-Centered Teaching! Learner-Centered Teaching equips participants with the strategies and tools necessary to use effective, hands-on teaching practices in short-format trainings. This 8-hour interactive program introduces key principles of educational psychology and evidence-based teaching. Through a blend of short lessons and hands-on practice, participants develop their instructional skills while engaging with a cohort of peers who share their interest in teaching and learning.

Carpentries Learner-Centered Teaching Training has the following goals:

  • Introduce you to evidence-based teaching practices.
  • Teach you strategies to foster positive, inclusive learning environments.
  • Provide opportunities to practice and receive feedback on teaching techniques.
  • Prepare you to lead effective short-format training sessions.

Because we have only limited time, some things are beyond the scope of this training. We will not be learning:

  • How to become a Carpentries certified Instructor and become integrated into the Carpentries community to teach Carpentries workshops. If you would like to learn more about becoming a Carpentries Instructor, you must attend Instructor Training. Please visit the Become an Instructor page on The Carpentries website for details on admission.
  • How to program in R or Python, use the Unix shell, Git or SQL, or any of the other topics taught in Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, or Software Carpentry workshops.
  • How to create your own lessons from scratch (although you will have a good start on the principles behind that sort of work if you are inspired to learn more, for example, in our lesson development training).

Learner-Centered Teaching events are hands-on throughout: short lessons alternate with individual and group practical exercises, including practice teaching sessions.

  • All participants are required to abide by our Code of Conduct.
  • There are no specific prerequisites for this training.
  • Participants are not required to have any specific programming skills.

Feedback on these materials is welcome as an issue on the GitHub repository that hosts this site.

These materials are freely available under a Creative Commons license.

Preparing for Your Training

  1. Please fill out our pre-training survey. Please refer to your pre-training email for a custom link for your event. Your responses will help your Trainers understand your background and customise the training appropriately. They also assist The Carpentries in understanding and reporting on our impact.

For Online Events:
Please ensure that your computer and internet are sufficient to connect via Zoom for the full event. You will need to have the bandwidth to transmit video during your practice exercises.

For In-Person Events:
Please bring a laptop powerful enough to teach on so that you can take part in all of the practical exercises (a tablet will not be sufficient).