Introduction

Overview

Teaching: 0 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• How will a typical study group session be structured?

• What roles will participants take on during the program?

Objectives

• Describe the format of a study group session.

• Find notes from previous sessions.

• Summarise the responsibilities of the Discussion Lead and Notetaker for each session.

Prerequisites

The program content assumes that participants are already familiar with Markdown, and the good teaching practices introduced in The Carpentries Instructor Training.

If you are not yet familiar with Markdown, please work through this introduction to the language before you begin following the program. If you have not attended an Instructor Training workshop, or if you feel you would like to refresh your memory of the key concepts relevant to lesson development, please read the following sections before following the program:

• Building Skill with Practice
• Memory and Cognitive Load
• Motivation and Demotivation
• Preparing to Teach

Main Texts

During the program, Study Groups will read and discuss a range of resources relevant to the development of Carpentries lessons. Two resources central to the program are:

• The Carpentries Curriculum Development Handbook
  • Often abbreviated to CDH, the Curriculum Development Handbook provides a practical overview of the important steps in lesson development, focusing on how those steps relate to the processes and infrastructure of The Carpentries.
• Teaching Tech Together by Greg Wilson
  • A more comprehensive review of good practices in lesson development, teaching, and community building.

Other resources will be linked throughout the site, and the Further Reading page lists some recommended resources for those who wish to explore beyond the program’s required reading.

Weekly Routine

Each week of the program* includes a set of reading tasks, a one-hour group discussion session to reflect on that reading material, and a set of homework tasks designed to help participants apply the concepts they have read about to the design and development of their lesson.

Participants should try to complete the reading and homework tasks before the weekly discussion with your group. We know that you will have many demands on your time and sometimes it may be difficult to finish everything. Where you think this may be the case, please prioritise the reading over other homework tasks, so you can follow and contribute to the group discussion.

*there will be a two-week interval between sessions 7 and 8,26 March 2021 - 9 April 2021, to allow time for participants to complete a trial run teaching one of the episodes from their lesson.

Roles

Every weekly discussion session will have a Discussion Lead, a Notetaker and one or more Group Facilitators. The roles of the Discussion Lead and the Notetaker will rotate weekly between group participants.

Discussion Lead

The Discussion Lead is responsible for leading the group through a discussion of the reading material for this session. They set the agenda for the discussion in the shared notes document and ensure every group member has an equal opportunity to contribute. They also take notes when the Notetaker is speaking. The role rotates weekly.

When setting the agenda, the Discussion Lead might choose to include one or more of the suggested Discussion Prompts from the episode page for that week, but they are also free to design their own agenda and set their own prompts for the discussion.

Discussion Leads may choose to assign timings (5 mins, 10 mins, etc) to points on the agenda to ensure the discussion keeps moving, or they may prefer to let the conversation flow more freely.

Notetaker

The Notetaker is responsible for ensuring that the key points of the discussion are noted. They may do this all themselves or call for help from others e.g. the Group Facilitator. It is important that the Notetaker is also able to contribute to the discussion, so the Discussion Lead should cover notes when the Notetaker is speaking. The Notetaker is also responsible for adding a copy of the notes to the carpentries-incubator/study-groups GitHub repository before the start of the next session. The role rotates weekly.

Group Facilitator

The Group Facilitator is a person with experience of the lesson development process and The Carpentries lesson infrastructure. One or more Group Facilitators will be present each week to facilitate the discussions, answer any questions, and help group participants with the lesson development process.

Rotating Roles Schedule

The schedule for these roles will be randomly generated by the program organisers and shared with the participants at the beginning of the round. Particpants will be able to rearrange this schedule if they are unable to fulfill one or both of these roles in the weeks they are initially assigned.

Homework Tasks

Note for groups of participants collaborating on a single lesson: ALL: a task to be done by all collaborators on a lesson; ONE: a task to be done by only one participant per lesson, ideally after discussion with their collaborators.

• (ONE) Make sure you have proposed your lesson to The Carpentries Incubator by opening an issue on the Proposals repository.
  • Answer the questions in the issue template to submit your proposal.
• (ALL) Read The Carpentries Code of Conduct, which applies to all interactions throughout the duration of the Study Groups program.
• (ALL) Read CDH Chapter 1: Guiding Principles and CDH Chapter 2: Our Curriculum Structure.
• (ALL) Read Greg Wilson’s Ten Rules from Teaching Tech Together.

Key Points

• Discussions focus on how the concepts and resources introduced each week can be applied to the design and development of lessons.

• The roles of Discussion Lead and Notetaker rotate between group participants each week.

• The Discussion Lead is responsible for keeping discussion moving and on topic, and ensuring every participant can contribute equally.

• The Notetaker is responsible for recording the key points of the discussion and uploading these to GitHub after the session.