Week 6

Last updated on 2024-09-30 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • See discussion questions.

Objectives

  • Analyze how Carpentries teaching practices align with strategies for designing effective practice opportunities.
  • List two important characteristics of effective feedback.
  • Explain strategies for helping trainees and new Instructors give good feedback.

Reading:

From How Learning Works:

  • Chapter 6: What Kinds of Practice and Feedback Enhance Learning? (p. 130 - 161)

From The Carpentries Instructor Training curriculum:

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.

  2. When trainees give feedback, especially when giving feedback to themselves, they are VERY likely to comment on the number of times they said “um” or “uh” during their practice presentation. How would you go about helping them to level up their feedback to address more impactful features?

  3. Responses to Carpentries pre- and post- surveys are intended to be useful to Instructors, Hosts, and The Carpentries. In particular, we aspire to using data from these surveys to improve understanding of the functionality of our programming as well as promote our successes and needs to funders. This is critical to the sustainability of The Carpentries overall. However, this requires that surveys be systematically administered. Nobody likes surveys, and it’s not fun to hound people to take them, either. What can we do to persuade Instructors to make more consistent use of these important assessment tools? (Responses might include ways to make the surveys themselves more useful.)

  4. In the context of a Carpentries workshop, what role does an Instructor play in creating opportunities for practice? What role does a helper play?

  5. In what ways do learners in a workshop get feedback on their progress? Is that feedback likely to meet the criteria for useful feedback outlined in this chapter? Why or why not?

  6. In both Instructor Training and workshops, Carpentries surveys provide feedback from learners, and additional feedback mechanisms (e.g. minute cards and one-up-one-down) supplement this for a rich source of information. Do you think there is any additional advantage in asking a co-Instructor or co-Trainer for feedback? Why or why not? If so, how would you go about seeking such feedback?

Key Points

  • Feedback is an essential part of Carpentries workshops and Instructor Training. Trainees often need guidance on how to invite, give, and receive good feedback.
  • The ways that a team of Instructors and Helpers manages the learning environment of a workshop can have a profound effect on how much effective feedback learners receive. Instructor Training should make trainees aware of this and give them strategies to maximise their impact.