Week 5 Discussion Questions

Last updated on 2024-04-18 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • Key question

Objectives

  • Explain the impact of The Carpentries Code of Conduct on classroom climate.
  • Predict challenges faced by new Instructors in creating a positive classroom climate and propose possible solutions.
  • Predict challenges faced by new Instructors and learners in transferring metacognitive skills to a new learning process and propose possible solutions.
  • Connect common Carpentries classroom practices with strategies that support metacognition and identify the relationship between them.

Reading

How Learning Works

  • Chapter 6: Why Do Student Development and Course Climate Matter?
  • Chapter 7: How Do Students Become Self-Directed Learners?

Discussion Questions

1. What stood out to you from this week’s reading? Think of things that made sense in light of your own experience, things you’re not convinced of, or questions that you have.

How Learning Works

Chapter 6: Why do Student Development and Course Climate Matter for Learning?

2. How might The Carpentries Code of Conduct function in supporting an “explicitly centralizing”(p.171-172) classroom climate?

3. Choose a strategy among those suggested on pages 180-186 that seems useful or essential to a Carpentries workshop. What factors might prevent an Instructor from effectively implementing this strategy? As a Trainer, how might you help?

Chapter 7: How do Students Become Self-directed Learners?

4. Most of our learners have rich experience with metacognitive strategies, but may not automatically apply them to the content of our workshops or Instructor Training. Why do you think this is? How can we support our learners in transferring metacognitive skills appropriately?

5. (Try not to skip this question.) Try making a concept map that links one or more of the strategies on p.203-215 to one or more practices that could be implemented in a workshop to support metacognition. What concepts did you connect? What relationships did you identify?

Key Points

  • The Carpentries Code of Conduct is one of many features that creates a positive classroom climate for Carpentries workshops.
  • Instructor trainees will face challenges as they develop skill in teaching. As in Carpentries workshops, a core goal of our two-day training is to prepare them to encounter and surmount those challenges.