"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."
And yet, people teach first-year algebra every year. To some extent, there has to be a shift in how you think about things when you're teaching a university course, particularly for undergraduates. I don't think every student who takes my genetics course is doing that because of a deep and abiding love of genetics. My computational bio classroom is mostly people who have some intrinsic motivation (MS students with data, faculty with data, undergrads who are getting into research). Some don't that motivation - maybe they took a class with me before, maybe this was the only upper-division elective that fits in their schedule and they need to graduate. That's fine! If you have a bunch of undergraduates, the goal might not be that everyone leaves the semester having made some pipeline more reproducible, and with a laptop of scientific software. With undergraduates, the goal might be that they leave the semester thinking about problems differently, or maybe they're able to explain something they hear on the news better, or maybe they remember having fun chatting about research and computation with a group of scientists. Admittedly, my perspective is really strongly influenced by being a first-generation college student - I didn't know to do any of this. And my students are heavily skewed towards being first generation, and often "trying on" different ways of being scientists. We teach the students we have, and that means meeting them where they are, not necessarily where we want them to be. --a --------- Assistant Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University Biology Department 403 Biology Building 2400 N. Oak St Hammond, LA. 70402 512.940.5761 https://paleantology.com/the-wright-lab/ <http://wrightaprilm.github.io/pages/about_me.html> On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 7:30 AM Gerard Capes <[email protected]> wrote: > Further to Greg's comment: > > > 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]. > > > This matches my experience. I recently scheduled a few SWC lessons run as > one-day training courses for a Centre for Doctoral Training. Learners were > a mix of the CDT group for whom participation was compulsory, and other > PhD/Post-Doc researchers at the university who were there of their own free > will. At least half the CDT group didn't see the merit in learning the > material and disrupted the course for those who did want to learn. > > This isn't something I plan to repeat - I only want to teach people who > want to learn. > > Thanks > Gerard > -- > Gerard Capes > Research Applications, IT Services, University Of Manchester > ------------------------------------------ > The Carpentries: discuss > Permalink: > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Tad9e416c2ec4742e-Md91b235d2db9487c79eb2589 > Delivery options: > https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription > ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Tad9e416c2ec4742e-M93bac088159fc4c4e674b385 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
