Collaborative Lesson Development Training

The Carpentries

Online

13-16 June + 27-28 July, 2022

12:00-16:00 UTC

Instructors: Toby Hodges, Mateusz Kuzak, Aleksandra Nenadic, Sarah Stevens

Helpers:

General Information

About this training

Collaborative Lesson Development Training is a new program being piloted by The Carpentries, teaching the skills required to collaboratively create open source lessons using The Carpentries infrastructure. The training will focus on three main topics:

Good practice in lesson design and development
Creating lesson websites with The Carpentries Workbench
Collaboration skills

Spread over six half days, with an extended break between sessions 4 & 5, participants will learn how to prepare an effective lesson to suit a defined target audience, how to implement that lesson as an open source website using The Carpentries lesson infrastructure, and how to collaborate and build community around a lesson project. Participants will apply these principles as they are introduced during the training, creating a sound foundation for their lesson in a series of hands-on exercises, trialling newly-developed content, and preparing their lesson repository for collaboration.

Who is this training for?

The pilot is aimed at teams of 2-4 people, wishing to collaborate on a new lesson. At least one member of each team should be a certified Instructor, having completed The Carpentries Instructor Training, or another training covering similar topics, e.g. an RStudio Instructor.

Format & application

This training will take place virtually, combining video and screen sharing on Zoom with a collaborative notetaking document for sharing notes, responses to exercises, and links to further resources. The first pilot will take place 13-16 June and 27&28 July 2022 (12:00-16:00 UTC).

There is no fee to join the pilot, but spaces are limited. To apply to participate in the training, please fill out this short form: https://forms.gle/9ZXZEjgJGWNQmxY47

This is a pilot workshop, testing out a lesson that is still under development. The lesson authors would appreciate any feedback you can give them about the lesson content and suggestions for how it could be further improved.

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

When: 13-16 June + 27-28 July, 2022. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must have access to a computer with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email tobyhodges@carpentries.org for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.

Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Schedule

Please check the lesson homepage for a list of lesson sections and estimated timings.

The lesson taught in this workshop is being piloted and a precise schedule is yet to be established. The workshop will include regular breaks. Please contact the workshop organisers if you would like more information about the planned schedule.

Setup

To participate in a workshop, you will need access to software as described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

Two monitors: If you have two monitors, plan to have the tool you are learning up on one monitor and the video conferencing software on the other.
Two devices: If you don't have two monitors, do you have another device (tablet, smartphone) with a medium to large sized screen? If so, try using the smaller device as your video conference connection and your larger device (laptop or desktop) to follow along with the tool you will be learning about.
Divide your screen: If you only have one device and one screen, practice having two windows (the video conference program and one of the tools you will be using at the workshop) open together. How can you best fit both on your screen? Will it work better for you to toggle between them using a keyboard shortcut? Try it out in advance to decide what will work best for you.

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

Please check the “Setup” page of the lesson site for instructions to follow to obtain the software and data you will need to follow the lesson.