Introductions
- This course will focus on participant-led discussion of assigned readings.
- Becoming a certified Instructor Trainer requires you to complete additional steps after this training concludes.
Prior Knowledge
- Prior knowledge about teaching strategies varies among trainees in Instructor Training courses. Being attentive to this will improve your impact.
- Pre-assessment surveys are a critical component of all Carpentries workshops and trainings.
Motivation
- We expect trainees to have diverse motivations for joining Instructor Training.
- Although Carpentries workshops and trainings are short, there are many strategies that we can employ to keep learners and trainees motivated.
Mastery
- 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.
Feedback
- 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.
Code of Conduct
- Highlighting the importance of the Code of Conduct sets the tone for the your training.
- Code of Conduct incidents are rare in our community, but we need to be prepared to handle one if it arises.
Course Climate and Identity
- Student-centered teaching requires teaching students, not content. It requires not treating all students the same (equality) but giving each student what they need (equity).
- Class climate has a major impact on learning.
- Creating a safe and welcoming space for everyone in your workshop or training takes planning, self-reflection, and humility.
Live Coding
- Participatory live coding is one of the core teaching practices of The Carpentries, and important to give trainees (useful!) practice in.
- It’s important to practice our own teaching and giving and receiving feedback!
How We Operate
- The Carpentries can appear large and complicated to newcomers, and Instructor Training may be a trainee’s first encounter with the community.
- Instructor Trainers may need to overcome their own expert awareness gaps in relation to The Carpentries while teaching Instructor Training.
Conclusions
- Although Instructor Trainers are considered experts in teaching within The Carpentries community, we need to keep practising our skills to build and maintain them.
- Instructor Trainers are supported by each other and by The Carpentries Core Team.
- Teaching Instructor Training can be demanding but it is also very rewarding and often a lot of fun!