Instructor Notes
Homework/Pre-reading
When nearing the end of the first half-day of the training, Trainers may find it beneficial to remind trainees that they should have reviewed the content of the Choosing a Narrative and Dataset for a Lesson in the community handbook in advance of the training. The guidance on that page is needed for trainees to complete the exercise in Example Data and Narrative so the break before the second half-day is their last chance to review that handbook page.
Training Themes
Lesson Development as a Learning Process
A recurring theme in this training is the discussion of the benefits of piloting a new lesson and treating teaching as an opportunity to learn and improve the lesson. We have found it helpful to frame the discussion this way and to draw on our own experience when talking about the ways in which piloting a lesson can help to improve it. For example, when teaching the assessments or narrative section you might discuss a time when you piloted a workshop and realized there was a concept missing in the demo/narrative that learners needed in order to be able to complete the exercise.
Why do we adapt Nicholls’ approach?
We use a modified version of Nicholls’ five phase paradigm for curriculum design throughout the training. Nicholls’ paradigm describes a process, commonly referred to as backward design, where those who wish to develop a new curriculum first begin by defining exactly what their learners will be able to do after they have completed the lesson/training/course. The subsequent stages of the curriculum design process involve designing content to directly meet those stated outcomes.
- Select learning outcomes
- Choose learning experiences to help learners achieve these outcomes
- Develop content to support these experiences
- Assess learner progress towards desired outcomes
- Evaluate chosen outcomes, experiences, and content based on this assessment
The Carpentries community specialises in relatively short-format workshops, typically lasting less than a week and including no opportunities for any assessment after the teaching has finished (a summative assessment). To account for this, our lessons (and this training) place an emphasis on formative assessment: assessment of learner progress that takes place while the teaching is still going on, to give instructors opportunities to evaluate the teaching and lesson content before the end of the workshop. The process we follow in this training reflects that emphasis, giving more attention to the design of these formative assessments (and particularly exercises) as the equivalent to the learning experiences described by Nicholls.