Welcome

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• What can I expect from this program?

• What is expected of me during the program?

• How are Carpentries lessons structured?

Objectives

• Describe the format of Study Group sessions.

• Idenify three advantages of taking a Backwards Design approach to lesson development.

• Explain the relationship between episodes, lessons, and Lesson Programs.

Reading List

• The Carpentries Code of Conduct.
• The Introduction page of this site.
• CDH Chapter 1: Guiding Principles.
• CDH Chapter 2: Our Curriculum Structure.
• Greg Wilson’s Ten Rules from Teaching Tech Together.

This first discussion session will include a full round of introductions, giving all participants an opportunity to tell the others attending:

• who they are.
• what their lesson will teach.
• their previous experience working with The Carpentries lesson template.

Discussion Prompts

• What are some of the advantages of developing an open source lesson?
• What are some of the disadvantages?
• Which of the seven principles of learning, defined by Ambrose et al. and summarised in CDH Chapter 1, are particularly relevant to The Carpentries lesson design and development?
• Are there any that you think are less relevant?
• CDH Chapter 1 also summarises the key steps in designing a lesson: identifying the practical skills you want to teach; designing challenges to assess understanding; creating a narrative and choosing an appropriate dataset for your lesson; and planning lesson content. Which of these steps do you expect to be the most difficult in the development of your lesson?

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, the person who opened the lesson proposal issue - see previous page) Work with the Curriculum Community Developer to ensure your lesson repository is created in The Carpentries Incubator.
• (ALL) Read Chapter 3: Deciding what to teach of the Curriculum Development Handbook.
• (ONE, share the IRL with your collaborators) Make a copy of the Lesson Design Notes Template in your preferred format. You can use this page to record important decisions made about the design of your lesson during and after the Study Groups Program.
• (ONE) Add a link to your Lesson Design Notes to the Study Group’s shared notes document.
• (ALL) Write at least one learner profile for your lesson and add it to your Lesson Design Notes, making sure your profile(s) answer the questions listed in the chapter.

Key Points

• The Lesson Development Study Groups program combines reading, discussion, and practical lesson development tasks.

• Participants are expected to do the reading, to perform assigned roles and contribute actively to discussions, and to complete homework tasks between sessions.

• Carpentries lessons consist of a collection of episodes and supporting material.

• Multiple lessons can form a Lesson Program, such as Software or Library Carpentry, or a curriculum, such as Data Carpentry Ecology.