Thanks everyone for your comments; three points:
- There appears to be overwhelming support for starting the instructor
journey the oldschool way - by attending or helping at a workshop. I
also will join the chorus of agreement, since this is certainly the best
way to understand what actually goes on at the event proper. But in that
case, shall we make it official, and promote previous workshop
attendance as a hard requirement for future instructor training? Greg
and I have chatted about this previously, too - perhaps it's time to set
it on the path to enshrinement.
- As Justin rightly points out: attending a workshop does not address
the problem of increasing new instructors' comfort level *before* they
get in front of that class. The feedback I got from people was that
there was a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety on how to prepare for
their first workshop - unpacking that more could make a much smoother
path for this part of the instructor experience, which many people are
struggling with, and that's what the Welcome Package should try to address.
- I agree completely with pursuing a more structured mentorship model
- that's what I'd like us to spitball some ideas for in the Mentor's
Guide brainstorm etherpad. It will take some leadership from the
Steering Committee as Greg suggests, but no need to wait for process to
get some thoughts out now! Having that as raw material will help that
future champion hit the ground running with some ideas to start from.
On 2014-12-12 1:54 PM, Greg Wilson wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of more structured mentorship - the problem is
finding time both to set it up and to actually do it. I hope a member
of the Steering Committee that's to be elected at the end of January
will take this on as their primary responsibility.
Cheers,
Greg
On 2014-12-12 4:42 PM, Justin Kitzes wrote:
+1 from me also, although I want to make sure that we don't lose
sight of Bill's original question, which was about how to bridge new
instructors from post-training to becoming confident independent
instructors, not about how to prepare for the training.
I've suggested several times, most recently on the SWC blog [1], that
we should have a more structured mentorship program for new
instructors in which they're guided in person and individually by
more experienced instructors. I feel fairly strongly that the
mentorship direction that we seem to be headed in by default, which
is a mix of conference calls, written post-assessment, and written
guide books (see [2] for example), is fundamentally not the right
approach. Teaching this stuff is difficult, and I believe that
learning to do it requires something closer to an apprenticeship than
a distance learning course (e.g., joining a lab to earn a PhD rather
than taking a series of MOOCs).
I'm not sure why, but I've felt in the past that there wasn't a whole
lot of momentum for setting up a structure for this type of "thicker"
interaction. (Incidentally, I thought that the need for this was the
#1 takeaway from the Building a Better Teacher book that many of us
read on Greg's suggestion.) I'm OK if this isn't a direction that we
want to go now, but I can't help but continue to think that the
issues raised by Bill would be better solved by this approach.
Best,
Justin
[1]:
http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2014/09/further-thoughts-on-better-teachers.html
[2]:
http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2014/12/plans-for-2015-mentorship-and-assessment.html
On Dec 12, 2014, at 1:08 PM, Greg Wilson
<[email protected]> wrote:
I'd like to +1 Matt's comment as well -- given how many workshops we
run, and how much demand there is for instructor training, I think
it makes sense to say that people ought to attend or help at a
workshop before starting instructor training. ("Ought to" because
there will always be exceptions: some people have lots of teaching
experience in other grassroots groups, and when we're moving into
new geographical regions, it won't always be possible for people to
attend one before starting training.)
Thanks,
Greg
On 2014-12-12 3:41 PM, Ted Hart wrote:
I'll also +1 Matt's comment. Way back in 2012 I attended my first
SWC workshop hosted by the CS dept at UBC, taught by Greg. I then
helped organize a couple more where I co-taught with Greg and Ethan
at different workshops. I had this experience under my belt before
I began instructor training, I think one of the first that Greg ran
online.
It seems like path to becoming an instructor is a bit different
now, starting off with instructor training, and then running a
workshop. Less of the 'journeyman' system of a few years back.
And while sending helpers around isn't feasible because of $$, what
about requiring interested people to organize a workshop and they
could help, if one isn't already being run locally? After all, it
was that effect of getting one or two instructors out of each
locally run workshops that helped us get so many instructors in the
first place.
Maybe it's not a good idea to take on instructors if they haven't
at least attended a workshop (I'm not sure how common this is though)
T
On Fri Dec 12 2014 at 12:24:03 PM Kara Woo <[email protected]> wrote:
Helping at real workshops would indeed probably be the best way to
build experience, but it's not going to be logistically or
financially feasible for everyone, since as far as I know workshops
don't typically cover travel costs for helpers. While not a
substitute for firsthand experience, a network of
community support and resources for new (and experienced!)
instructors will definitely help people (or at
least, me) feel more prepared and confident.
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Marianne Corvellec
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hello,
I would like to +1 Matt's comment. I don't really see how you would
do without this very natural, gradual, beneficial process.
I know people who have attended, helped and sometimes instructed at
several workshops but haven't taken the instructor training program
(yet). So when/if they become Software Carpentry instructors, I think
the transition will be pretty smooth...
As a new instructor, I don't see how you would want to read a
guide/manual rather than helping at real workshops, because that's
when you start feeling useful and you learn a lot and you're not alone
and that's a great experience. :)
Marianne
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Matt Davis <[email protected]>
wrote:
I had one question after reading your post, and that's what role
being a
workshop helper/assistant has in the instructor on-boarding process?
A couple years ago before our explosive growth and the instructor
training
program, the on-boarding process was (perhaps informally),
something like:
- attend or be a helper at a workshop
- teach at a workshop with an experienced instructor
We have different processes and more people now, but you can't
discount the
value of "learn by doing".
- Matt
On Fri Dec 12 2014 at 10:47:53 AM Bill Mills
<[email protected]>
wrote:
Hey everyone,
I spoke privately to some of you over the past couple weeks on
what it's
like being a Software Carpentry instructor, particularly a new
instructor - what are the challenges you face, and what can we do to
make your first few workshops a smoother experience? I summarized
the
most popular comments in this blog post:
http://mozillascience.org/starting-instruction-feedback-from-the-new-instructor-community/
One of the main things that came out of this, was a need for a
smoother
on-ramp going from Instructor Training to your first workshop -
what are
the steps involved, how do you prepare, and what are everyone's
responsibilities? To this end, I think it would be valuable if we
created a short Welcome Package explaining these things and
providing
some clear instructions for people, and a Mentor's Guide for more
experienced instructors guiding this process. More details are in
the
blog post, but we're brainstorming ideas for both of these things
in the
following etherpads:
New Instructor Welcome Package:
https://etherpad.mozilla.org/newInstructorWelcomePackage
Mentor's Guide: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/SWCmentorsGuide
What do people think? Please jump in and share your thoughts!
Thanks in
advance,
--
Bill Mills
Community Manager, Mozilla Science Lab
@billdoesphysics
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Software Carpentry |
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