Mastery

Last updated on 2024-12-04 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 60 minutes

Overview

Questions

  • How can we support new Instructors in developing mastery?
  • How can we mitigate our own expert awareness gaps?

Objectives

  • Predict the impact of cognitive limitations on both trainees and Instructor Trainers in Instructor Training.
  • Compare the challenge of preparing different types of learners (Instructor trainees vs. workshop learners) to transfer skills to usable contexts.
  • Predict challenges posed by expertise awareness gaps in the context of teaching Instructors how to teach.
  • Distinguish challenges related to skill level faced by learners from those faced by Instructors.

Reading

From How Learning Works:

  • Chapter 5: How Do Students Develop Mastery? (p. 106 - 129)
  • Appendix C: What Are Student Self-Assessments and How Can We Use Them? (p. 226 - 228)

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. Many of our curricula contain more content than can be covered in our ‘2-day’ format. How can we help our trainees remember to keep it slow and resist the urge to ‘get through’ everything by talking faster?

  3. What expert awareness gaps might you have on the subject of teaching or learning? How might such gaps become apparent when teaching others how to teach?

  4. How might “blind spots” (now re-named in our curriculum as “expert awareness gaps”) and cognitive load affect learners during Instructor Training? What about Instructor Trainers?

  5. How can we help learners bridge the gap between learning and application? Is this different for Instructor Training vs Carpentries workshops?

Key Points

  • To be effective Instructor Trainers, we must be aware of our own expertise in teaching.
  • Teaching Instructor Training creates a lot of cognitive load! The Instructor Trainer community has developed several strategies to help manage this load during training events.