Content from Welcome

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What can I expect from this Training?
  • What is expected of me in this Training?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • describe the format of the Trainer Training program and sessions.
  • summarise the lesson development experience of the participants in the cohort.
Checklist
Discussion

Introductions

The first discussion session will begin with a full round of Introductions, where trainees and facilitators will be given the opportunity to share some details about themselves and their past experience with curriculum development and The Carpentries.

About this Training

The goal of this training is to prepare participants to teach The Carpentries Collaborative Lesson Development Training (CLDT).

The training will involve weekly discussion calls attended by trainees and facilitators, as well as reading tasks and occasional, more practical, homework tasks. The reading and other tasks have been selected to provide trainees with insight into the CLDT curriculum, some of the literature on which it is based, and the experience participants will have when in the lesson development training.

Weekly training structure

Each episode of this lesson site corresponds to a week of Trainer Training, and contains Reading List, Discussion Questions and Homework/Reading for Next Week blocks.

  • Reading List: these are the resources trainees should read before joining the weekly discussion call. When reading episodes from the CLDT curriculum, please make sure that you are viewing the page in Instructor View so that inline Instructor Notes are displayed on the page.
  • Discussion Questions: these questions will form the basis for the agenda of the weekly discussion call, though discussions are likely to elaborate on and stray away from these starting questions.
  • Homework/Reading for Next Week: this block provides trainees with an overview of the tasks they are expected to complete before the next weekly discussion call.

The final episode provides a list of tasks trainees need to complete before they can be certified as a Lesson Developer Trainer.

Caution

Collaborative Lesson Development Training is Changing!

Informed by experience and feedback gathered over the first few years of teaching and administering the training program, a redesigned version of CLDT will be launched in January 2026. We will talk more about what has changed and why as we progress through this training. For now, it is essential for trainees to be aware that many of the links for reading in this Trainer Training will point to a preview of the updated version of the CLDT curriculum. This redesigned content will be merged into the official version of the curriculum at the end of 2025.

Callout

Curriculum is a work in progress

Any lesson or curriculum has room for improvement, especially when it is relatively new and not extensively tested.

If you think that something is wrong, missing, or could be improved in this training curriculum or the CLDT curriculum, please report it by opening an issue on the source repository(source for this training; source for CLDT) or - even better - open a pull request to suggest the improvement.

The curriculum belongs to the community - let’s develop it together!

Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • What questions do you have about this training?
  • In your experience, what are some good practices people can adopt to help them develop better lessons/curriculum?
  • What topics are you hoping to find are covered in the Collaborative Lesson Development Training curriculum?
Checklist

Reading for Next Week

Key Points
  • The training program will provide an overview of the Collaborative Lesson Development Training curriculum, the key concepts and principles behind it, and opportunities to discuss all of this with the other members of the cohort.
  • In addition to attending weekly discussion sessions, trainees are required to complete reading and occasional homework tasks before they become certified Trainers.

  1. Via A, Palagi PM, Lindvall JM et al. Course design: Considerations for trainers – a Professional Guide [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:1377 (document) (https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1118395.1)↩︎

  2. Via A, Palagi PM, Lindvall JM et al. Course design: Considerations for trainers – a Professional Guide [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:1377 (document) (https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1118395.1)↩︎

Content from Backward Lesson Design

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What is meant by backward design of curriculum?
  • What are the main steps of the backward design process?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of backward design?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • discuss the application of backward design to the curriculum for short-format training events like Carpentries workshops.
  • list at least three advantages and at least one disadvantage of taking a backward design approach to lesson/curriculum design.
Checklist

Reading List

Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • What are the three stages of the backward design process? How are they addressed in the lesson development process?
  • Why is it helpful to start the lesson development process with the target audience in mind?
  • In The Carpentries, we tend to present learning objectives as opposed to outcomes. What distinction, if any, do you see between these two terms? Which do you think is more appropriate? In your opinion, should The Carpentries switch over and start listing “Outcomes” instead of “Objectives” on episodes pages?
  • How is designing assessments helpful in the lesson design process?
  • How to decide what to teach first? How to decide what not to teach?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of backward design?
Discussion

Reading List

Key Points
  • Backward design describes a process for curriculum development that begins with the definition of skills learners will obtain from following the curriculum.
  • The main steps of backward design are:
    • defining learning outcomes.
    • designing learning experiences to achieve those outcomes.
    • developing content to support these experiences.
    • assessing learners’ progress towards the desired outcomes.
    • evaluating the curriculum design based on this assessment.
  • Backward design helps keep curriculum development focussed on the intended learner, and it can make it easier to trim down lesson content to focus only on what is required to achieve specific outcomes.
  • Creating a new lesson/curriculum with backward design can take more time than an alternative, “content-first” approach.

Content from Target audience and teaching objectives

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • Why is it essential to understand the target audience before starting the lesson development process?
  • How does prior knowledge affect learning?
  • How do learner profiles help define the learning outcomes?
  • What are SMART objectives?
  • How is Bloom’s Taxonomy used in formulating Learning Objectives?
  • How do good objectives help with focus and provide scope for the lesson?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • Explain the importance of a well-defined target audience.
  • List at least four things lesson developers should know about their target audience.
  • Explain how Bloom’s taxonomy and SMART framework can help define learning objectives.
  • Evaluate lesson objectives and make suggestions for improvements.
  • Explain how the objectives are used to give the lesson more focus.
Checklist

Reading List

Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • What should a good description of your target audience include?
  • What are the different ways the clear description of the target can be used?
  • Can you give examples from your teaching of a situation when prior knowledge impacted learning? Did that make you change the way you teach this particular content?
  • Why is specificity important when describing the target audience?
  • What is your experience using Bloom’s taxonomy to define lesson objectives? Do you find it helpful, and why?
  • Can you give some examples of unrealistic and realistic goals for specific audiences?
Discussion

Homework/Reading for Next Week

Key Points
  • Getting a clear image of the target audience at the beginning of the lesson development process helps with better focus and making sure that the lesson will address the needs of the learners.
  • Understanding your audience’s prior knowledge will help you choose the right level of instruction and set realistic goals.
  • Communicating the target audience clearly will help you attract the right participants.
  • Bloom’s taxonomy serves as a very useful bank of action verbs for use in learning objectives.
  • SMART framework is a valuable tool used for defining clear objectives.

Content from Formative Assessment & Feedback

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • Why is formative assessment so essential in a lesson?
  • What role does feedback play in iterative lesson development?
  • How is the iterative aspect of lesson development incorporated into Collaborative Lesson Development Training?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • explain the importance of feedback to an iterative lesson development process
Checklist

Reading List

Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • What are different formative assessment strategies that can help diagnose issues with the lesson? Discuss the effectiveness of those strategies. Give some examples of what actionable feedback might look like.
  • How do you think the optimal ratio of time spent on teaching and exercises changes as learner expertise increases? E.g. do you think a novice lesson will include more content to be taught and less time devoted to challenges/discussions, compared to an intermediate lesson on a similar topic?
  • What are some advantages and disadvantages of requiring trainees to teach (some of) their new lessons to complete their Lesson Developer certification?
  • How complete do you like a lesson to be before you teach it for the first time?
  • Some trainees are reluctant to trial incomplete or unstructured material, feeling a lack of confidence at being able to improvise in response to questions/unexpected results, or fill in steps in the teaching examples on the fly. What guidance would you give to a trainee, to help them find a balance between preparing lesson content and taking an opportunity to gather feedback by teaching it?
  • What strategies could we encourage trainees to use, to convert the feedback they gather when teaching a lesson into actionable recommendations for improving it?
Discussion
Key Points
  • The effectiveness of a lesson can only be assessed by teaching it.
  • Direct and indirect feedback collected while teaching should be used to improve the lesson for next time.
  • Trainees are required to try teaching a section of their new lesson and report back on the experience to complete their Lesson Developer certification.

  1. Via A, Palagi PM, Lindvall JM et al. Course design: Considerations for trainers – a Professional Guide [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9:1377 (document) (https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1118395.1)↩︎

Content from Collaboration

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • Why is effective collaboration important for lesson development?
  • When, if ever, is it best to establish structured project governance?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • recommend tools and practices lesson developers can adopt to aid collaboration.
  • draw on their own experience to advise lesson developers on how to collaborate effectively.
Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • In your experience, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of collaborating on a project (lesson development or something else), as opposed to working alone?
  • What strategies have you used to work successfully with collaborators in the past? Do those strategies change with the size of the group?
  • How confident do you feel about leading Pilot Workshop Debrief session for lesson developers?
  • How confident do you feel about leading a GitHub Skill-up session?
  • What questions do you have about the checkout process for Lesson Developer certification?
Discussion

Homework/Reading for Next Week

  • Read CLDT episode: The Carpentries Workbench and follow the steps in the episode, creating and configuring a new lesson repository, while you read through the content.
  • Note down any problems you encounter along the way, no matter whether they were minor (i.e. slowed you down or confused you temporarily, but did not stop you from progressing) or major (i.e. you had to give up or ask for help).
  • CLDT episode: Adding Lesson Content
Key Points
  • Good collaboration allow you to create better lessons, faster, and to have more fun while you are doing it.
  • Structured decision-making, especially among close colleagues and/or friends, can feel unnecessarily formal early in a project.
  • On the other hand, it is easier to establish decision-making processes early and before any substantial disagreements have occured.

Content from Using the Lesson Infrastructure

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What do lesson developers need to be able to do with The Carpentries lesson infrastructure?
  • What are some common points of confusion for lesson developers working with the infrastructure?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • initialise and configure a new lesson website from a template repository.
  • edit the (R) Markdown source file of an episode.
  • help trainees to troubleshoot their issues with lesson setup and authoring.
Checklist

Reading List & Homework

  • Read CLDT episode: The Carpentries Workbench and follow the steps in the episode, creating and configuring a new lesson repository, while you read through the content.
  • Note down any problems you encounter along the way, no matter whether they were minor (i.e. slowed you down or confused you temporarily, but did not stop you from progressing) or major (i.e. you had to give up or ask for help).
  • CLDT episode: Adding Lesson Content
Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • The reading/homework task for this week asked you to read through and follow the steps in the Carpentries Workbench episode of the CLDT curriculum.
    • Were you able to do this?
    • If you got stuck at any point while following those steps:
      • where did you get stuck?
      • were you able to find a solution to your problem and continue? if so, what did you do to find the solution?
  • Although some experience of GitHub is specified as a prerequisite for CLDT, we can expect some trainees to arrive with little familiarity or confidence with the platform and the terminology associated with Git and GitHub. Furthermore, this may be the first time trainees have encountered a GitHub Pages project.
    • What “sticking points” do you anticipate among trainees learning to use the infrastructure to build a lesson website?
  • What strategies could Trainers/The Carpentries adopt to support trainees as they learn these skills
    • before the training?
    • during training?
    • after training?
Callout

Useful Lesson Infrastructure Resources

Discussion

Homework/Reading for Next Week

Key Points
  • Lesson developers will initialise a new lesson from a template repository, which they will then need to configure and start adding episodes to.
  • Developers will often need some support with the first stages of lesson setup, especially if they are not yet familiar with GitHub and/or Markdown.

Content from Training Logistics

Last updated on 2025-10-15 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What is the format and schedule of Collaborative Lesson Development Training?
  • What pathways and support is available for lessons in The Carpentries?
  • What do lesson developers need to do to comple the training and get certified?

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to…

  • describe the lesson life cycle and the pathways a lesson can follow in The Carpentries community.
  • prepare to teach Collaborative Lesson Development Training.
Checklist

Reading List

Structure of Collaborative Lesson Development Training

Collaborative Lesson Development Training now has a similar structure to The Carpentries Instructor Training. Training events take place (almost exclusively) online, across four 4-hour sessions, taught by two certified Lesson Developer Trainers. To complete their certification as a Lesson Developer, trainees are invited to complete a “checkout” process after this training, which has two required elements. To become certified, participants must:

  1. Pilot some of their new lesson content with a real audience.
  2. Attend a Pilot Workshop Debrief session, hosted by a Lesson Developer Trainer, and report on their experience from the pilot.

They may also choose to join a GitHub Skill-up.

The checkout process was the topic of a previous discussion call in this training.

A graphical representation of the schedule and checkout process for collaborative lesson development training.
To complete their Carpentries Lesson Developer certification, participants in this training must attend a Pilot Workshop Debrief session and report on the experience of trialling some of their new lesson content. Participation in a separate GitHub Skill-up teaching skills and approaches for effective collaboration is optional but recommended for Lesson Developers.

Scheduling training events

As with Instructor Training events, Collaborative Lesson Development Training events will be scheduled quarterly via a Google Form to gather Trainers’ availability.

Pilot Workshop Debrief and GitHub Skill-up sessions will be scheduled with Calendly, with registrations handled with pretix.

Discussion

Discussion Questions

  • This training is about lesson design and development skills, not teaching skills. How important do you think it is that every member of a collaborative group should have to teach during their pilot workshop - as opposed to, say, one member teaching all of the groups’ prepared episodes?
  • What questions do you have about how lesson development is done in The Carpentries community? E.g. The Carpentries Incubator, The Carpentries Lab, the lesson life cycle, the individual lesson programs of The Carpentries, Curriculum Advisors, Maintainers, and how all of these things fit together?
  • What questions do you have about how Collaborative Lesson Development Training will be administered?
  • How confident are you feeling about teaching the training for the first time? What support could we provide to help you feel more confident about teaching the training?
Discussion

Homework: Trainer Checkout

Do the following to complete your Trainer certification:

  1. Comment on an issue, review an open pull request, or submit a new pull request to fix an issue on the Collaborative Lesson Development Training curriculum.
    • Schedule a call with one of the facilitators if you would like help with this or if you have any follow-up questions.
  2. Teach Collaborative Lesson Development Training alongside an experienced Trainer.
Discussion

Optional reflection exercise

Take some time to reflect on everything you have read and discussed during this training, and make some notes for yourself that will help you prepare to teach the CLDT curriculum. You can do this however you please, but some suggested activities are:

  • Draw concept maps of the key topics covered in the curriculum. For example, you could try to draw a concept map for one (or all!) of the three main themes of the training: lesson design & development, lesson infrastructure, and collaboration skills.
  • The Instructor Training curriculum contains a list of Top Ten Tips for Participatory Live Coding. Try to prepare a similar list of tips for collaborative lesson development, summarising what you judge to be the most important practices/advice provided in the curriculum. (Your list does not have to contain exactly ten items!)
  • Connecting the concepts and practices taught in the CLDT curriculum with your own experience of collaboration and lesson/curriculum design and development, make notes about anecdotes and examples you could share when delivering the training.

Although these activities are primarily intended to be for yourself, the notes you take could also be helpful resources for others. If you are comfortable doing so, why not share what with the others in your cohort, or even open a pull request to add it to the curriculum repository?

Key Points
  • Collaborative Lesson Development Training is designed to be taught in two parts, with an extended break in between.
  • The Carpentries Incubator is a space for community development of lessons. Lessons developed in the Incubator can be submitted for open peer review and acceptance to The Carpentries Lab, and/or adoption as a new official lesson one of The Carpentries lesson programs.
  • To complete certification, trainees must participate in both parts of the training and perform a trial run of at least some of their lesson during the break.