I'm going to be a bit controversial here having been involved with Carpentries and as a regular classroom teacher in a University.
The methods that carpentries use for instruction are really not very good for teaching stuff. But their role, their intent is not to teach stuff so that students learn stuff. Instead they teach stuff so that students know what stuff there is to learn, and to know that they can do stuff (because they did stuff in the workshops) and can therefore learn stuff. To actually learn will take time and reflection, the time and space we have in a classical classroom scenario. Typically the target audience for carpentries are motivated students who are used to self directed learning and who want a condensed introduction/overview. The direct instruction real time 'follow my leader' approach of carpentries is effective for short intense courses like these but does not work well with larger classes, poor TA ratio, and a broader range of students. That does not mean it is a bad thing. I adapt this by pre-recording the sessions with live coding and have the students follow at their own pace in class with the videos (bring your own headphones). This allows them to stop, rewind, go off script etc. All sorts of things that you want in a semester course that there is not time for in a carpentries course. And we use post-its too (well, I call them ducks) simplified to a duck on a monitor being a request for attention. So there is a lot to learn from both - different ways of delivery to different bodies of students. I am very keen to see how Lex has got on with his databeregning 101 module in Oslo. ..d -----Original Message----- From: Greg Wilson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 04 October 2018 12:54 PM To: Discuss list Carpentries <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [discuss] How can we scale up Carpentries training at universities? Hi Lex, Thanks for starting this thread - my frustration with this problem back in 2008-10 was part of why I left academia to re-start Software Carpentry [1], and it's great to hear about other people's experiences and thinking. I haven't run a regular classroom course in eight years, so I don't think I have a lot to contribute to your first question. Regarding your second, I think you've set an impossible problem: if learners are extrinsically motivated (doing it because they have to), then we've lost before we start playing [2]. In my experience, Carpentry workshops work because people already have the problems we're showing them how to solve; if they don't, then we're in the same unhappy boat as first-year linear algebra courses. Putting things like plotting (which they can immediately use in other courses) at the start of a Carpentry course might help with this, and having them build and program lab hardware using Arduinos and the like might as well, but that's speculation. As for quality of instruction and instructor motivation, I think the fundamental problem is that teaching isn't respected or rewarded as much as most of us feel it should be. That's not specific to Carpentry, so I don't think we can or should try to solve it on our own. Instead, I think Carpentry should become a gateway to participation in groups like NABT [3], AAPT [4], or CEEA [5], through which the people we train will become part of a larger movement to modernize teaching practices in higher education. Achieving that will be the work of a lifetime, but believing that things are going to get better, and working with peers to make it happen, is a great motivator. Since there isn't a CarpentryCon in 2019, maybe some of us would like to plan to attend one of these organizations' conferences as a group and see if we can make new friends? Cheers, Greg [1] https://f1000research.com/articles/3-62/v2 (which really, really needs an update if anyone's willing to take a crack at it...) [2] https://www.amazon.com/Enhancing-Adult-Motivation-Learn-Comprehensive/dp/1119077990/ [3] https://nabt.org/ [4] http://www.aapt.org/ [5] https://ceea.ca/ On 2018-10-03 3:55 a.m., Lex Nederbragt wrote: > Hi community, > > At the University of Oslo (UiO), we have an ongoing process that will result > in a Masterplan for IT at the university. I am part of the task force > responsible for writing this plan, and have been tasked to contribute to a > section on skills training. We have a large Carpentries effort at UiO, > regularly teaching one-day workshops with one lesson of the Software > Carpentry stack each (including make and testing/continuous integration), > very popular two-day R (tidyverse), and occasionally Data or Library > Carpentry lessons or full two-day workshops. Many at UiO are now seeing the > need to offer this kind of skills training more widely and organized as > formal course offerings, potentially with students earning credit. > > I am very happy with this development as it is a recognition of the skill gap > that exists amongst researchers, and a testament to the success of The > Carpentries and our local effort in filling it. However, I also worry that we > may lose something in the process of scaling up offering these workshops. > > By making Carpentry workshops a core offering across departments, with > students able to earn credit from them, my fear is that the spirit of the > volunteer effort gets lost or may become reduced. Making our workshops into > required courses may change (reduce) the motivation for learners and > instructors. > > So here are my questions to you: > > ⁃ Have other universities made the same move, or are they planning this, > and if so, how are they organizing this effort? > ⁃ How to keep learners motivated if they feel they are required to take a > Carpentries workshops? > ⁃ How to keep the quality of instruction, and instructor motivation, high, > if workshops become organized like regular courses? > > I’d appreciate any suggestions that will help us become succesful scaling up > our Carpentries skills training! > > Regards, > > Lex Nederbragt > The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096 ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Tad9e416c2ec4742e-Mff0f1a4d2116a211550eb915 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
