The Carpentries is a community of practice centered around teaching foundational coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide. This Instructor Training event is designed to prepare trainees to certify and participate as Carpentries Instructors. However, much of our curriculum focuses on educational principles that apply across a wide variety of contexts. We also welcome participants who do not plan to certify but simply wish to become a better teacher.

Carpentries Instructor Training has the following goals:

• Introduce you to evidence-based teaching practices.
• Teach you how to create a positive environment for learners at your workshops.
• Provide opportunities for you to practice and build your teaching skills.
• Help you become integrated into the Carpentries community.
• Prepare you to use these teaching skills in teaching Carpentries workshops.

Because we have only limited time, some things are beyond the scope of this training. We will not be learning:

• How to program in R or Python, use Git or SQL, or any of the other topics taught in Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, or Software Carpentry workshops.
• How to create your own lessons from scratch. However, this Instructor Training serves as a good precursor to The Carpentries Lesson Developer Training.

Instructor Training events are hands-on throughout: short lessons alternate with individual and group practical exercises, including practice teaching sessions. This Instructor Training event is the first step towards certification as a Carpentries Instructor. For more details on the other 3 steps, see the Checkout Instructions page. For more information, see our Instructor Training Curriculum.

Code of Conduct

All participants are required to abide by The Carpentries Code of Conduct.

Where

This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

Accessibility

We are committed to making this training accessible to everybody.

Materials will be provided in advance of the event.

We do not require participants to provide documentation of disabilities or disclose any unnecessary personal information. However, we do want to help create an inclusive, accessible experience for all participants. We encourage you to share any information that would be helpful to make your Carpentries experience accessible. To request an accommodation for this training, please fill out the accommodation request form. If you have questions or need assistance with the accommodation form please email us.

How to Prepare for Instructor Training

Before your training, please visit our Preparing for Instructor Training page for complete instructions. A brief summary of these instructions is as follows

1. Complete our Pre-training Survey. You will receive a custom link for your event when you receive your connection information.
2. Select a lesson to use for teaching practice sessions and prepare a 3 minute segment, spending no more than 20-30 minutes to prepare.
3. Please read the following:
• The Science of Learning
• The Carpentries Annual Report

Checkout: The Instructor Certification Process

After the training event, we ask you to complete three follow-up tasks to become a certified Instructor. These requirements are detailed on our Checkout Instructions page and will be discussed at our training.

Attendance and Cancellation

Trainees who miss more than 1 hour of the training may be marked absent. Instructor certification cannot be completed without full attendance at an Instructor Training event. If you unexpectedly need to miss more than 1 hour of your event, please contact your Trainers (contact info below).

For events in which registration occurs through The Carpentries via Eventbrite, cancellation may be performed in Eventbrite up to the start of the event. Canceled seats cannot be filled after the 1 week registration deadline for these events, so we ask that you only cancel if absolutely necessary.

More information on our cancellation and makeup policy is available in The Carpentries Handbook.

Contact

Please email grace.fishbein@ace-net.ca or szamosjc@mcmaster.ca for more information.

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Preparation

Please read the following before the training begins:

1. The Science of Learning
2. The Carpentries 2021 Annual Report

Please also read through one episode of one of The Carpentries lessons below carefully, so that you can do some exercises based on it on the first day of the class. An episode is one page of a lesson.

• Data Carpentry Lessons
• Library Carpentry Lessons
• Software Carpentry Lessons

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Training Materials and Schedule

Please see the Instructor Training Curriculum for course material and sample schedule for a 2-day event.

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TWO DAY SCHEDULE

Surveys

Before attending the training, please fill out our pre-training survey.

After the training, please fill out our post-training survey.