Introduction

Last updated on 2026-02-24 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What is covered in this course?
  • Who are the instructors?
  • Who is participating?

Objectives

After completing this episode, participants will be able to…

  • Explain how instructors and participants will interact throughout the course.
  • Summarise the main skills that will be taught in this course.

Note: some of the content in this course is reproduced or adapted from The Carpentries Instructor Training curriculum.

Before The Course Begins

Discussion

Getting to Know Each Other

If the instructor has chosen an icebreaker question, participate by writing your answers in the shared document for the course.

Code of Conduct

To make clear what is expected, everyone participating in The Carpentries activities is required to abide by our Code of Conduct. Any form of behaviour to exclude, intimidate, or cause discomfort is a violation of the Code of Conduct. In order to foster a positive and professional learning environment we encourage you to:

  • Use welcoming and inclusive language
  • Be respectful of different viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accept constructive criticism
  • Focus on what is best for the community
  • Show courtesy and respect towards other community members

If you believe someone is violating the Code of Conduct, we ask that you report it to The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee by completing this form.

Running Effective Online Meetings Overview

We’ve all had experiences with terrible meetings. They start late, last too long, and never seem to meet their objectives. Sometimes they don’t even seem to have objectives! This course will teach you the skills you need to run good meetings - meetings that make good use of peoples’ time, make progress towards your group’s goals, and ensure all participants’ ideas and perspectives are brought to the table.

Before we begin, we’ll take a few minutes to share some of our bad meeting experiences and unpack what made them so bad!

Discussion

Our First Exercise (10 minutes)

Think of an example of a bad meeting you attended.

  • What did you find was making you not want to attend more meetings like it?
  • Why did it make such an impression on you?

Try to differentiate between what was bad about the behavior of the meeting leader and participants and what was bad about the setup of the meeting.

Take a few minutes to write down some notes about your answer, then introduce yourself to the other participants and tell them about it.

During the course, we will introduce the steps you can take to design a meeting environment that brings together all meeting participants in an inclusive and welcoming way to make progress towards your group’s goals. By the end of the course, you can expect to have developed and practiced strategies for crafting meaningful agendas, focusing group discussion towards outcomes, ensuring everyone’s perspective is shared, and dealing with common disruptive behaviours. Let’s get started!

Key Points
  • This course aims to teach you how to organise good meetings that people agree are worthwhile.