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Lesson Development Study Groups

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:

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Identifying the Audience

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • How do we identify the audience of a lesson?

  • What are the benefits of doing this early in the development process?

  • What are the challenges associated with defining a target audience?

Objectives

  • Identify the target audience of their lesson.

  • Characterise that target audience in a learner profile or persona.

  • Define the prior knowledge required by learners for their lesson.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • What did you find challenging about writing learner profiles?
  • What are some of the potential benefits of writing specific learner profiles rather than stopping after answering the audience definition questions?
  • What are some of the potential downsides?
  • Did characterising its target audience change how you plan to approach writing your lesson?
  • How many different learner profiles do you think you could write for your lesson?
  • What are some of the challenges of writing a lesson aimed at novices?
  • What are some of the challenges of writing a lesson aimed at people with some prior knowledge of the topic domain e.g. an intermediate programming 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.

  • (ALL) Read the Technological Introductions chapter of the CDH and follow the steps to set up your repository as described in the template README file.
  • (ONE) Read section A.2 of CDH Appendix A: The Carpentries Incubator, and add topics to your lesson repository. (If you cannot add the complete set of topic tags yet, do not worry: you will be able to add more and remove topics whenever you like.)
  • (ALL) Note down any questions you have about the lesson template and, if you got stuck, how far you had progressed with the setup beforehand.
  • (ALL) Add a link to your lesson repository to the Study Group’s shared notes document.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Lesson Infrastructure

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What are the tools required to develop lessons in The Carpentries?

  • What is the structure of a Carpentries lesson repository?

Objectives

  • Navigate the directory structure of a lesson repository.

  • Adjust the global configuration of a lesson.

  • Write formatted text with Markdown.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • What questions do you have after setting up/trying to set up your lesson repository?
  • What was confusing about the process?
  • What are some of the potential benefits of your lesson being listed on the Community Developed Lessons page at this early stage of development?
  • What are some of the potential downsides of this?
  • What topics did you choose to add to your lesson repository? Did you use a strategy to decide what these topics should be?

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.

Key Points

  • The Carpentries lessons use a shared lesson template to provide aesthetic and structural consistency across all lessons.

  • Lesson pages are written with Markdown and/or RMarkdown, built with Jekyll, and served via GitHub Pages.

  • The global configuration of a lesson site is set in the _config.yml file.

  • Supporting files are stored both in _extras/ and the root of directory of the repository.

Defining Objectives

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • How do we define the objectives of a lesson?

  • What are the benefits of doing this before writing the content?

  • What are the challenges associated with writing learning objectives?

  • How do considerations of cognitive load influence the structure of a lesson?

Objectives

  • Define high-level learning objectives for their lesson.

  • Define objectives for episodes.

  • Choose appropriate verbs to describe skills taught in a lesson or episode.

  • Describe three ways in which concept maps can be used in the development and/or teaching of a lesson.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • Given its target audience, and the expected duration of the workshops where it will be taught, what level(s) of Bloom’s Taxonomy could you expect learners to reach by the end of your lesson?
  • How challenging did you find it to define specific learning objectives for your lesson?
  • Did the process of defining target audience and learning objectives change what you plan to teach in your lesson? If so, how?
  • How do you plan to break your lesson up into episodes, in the context of what you know about short- and long-term memory?
  • Do you think concept maps can be a helpful tool when planning the structure of your lesson?
  • In what other ways, if any, do you plan to make use of concept maps in the development and/or content 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) Create placeholder files for the other episodes in your lesson. Optionally, add learning objectives to these episode files too.
  • (ALL) Schedule an opportunity to teach at least one episode of your new lesson. This trial run should take place between sessions 7 and 8(26 March 2021 - 9 April 2021). See the Episode Trial Run callout below for more details.
  • (ALL) Read Chapter 4: Designing Challenges of the Curriculum Development Handbook.
  • (ONE) If your lesson will use an example dataset, in the Data Set section of your Lesson Design Notes briefly describe the features and requirements an ideal dataset would have.
  • (ALL) Identify at least one appropriate example data set/narrative for your lesson, and add a link to the data set in the shared notes document.
  • (ALL) In the Data Set section of your Lesson Design Notes, briefly summarise:
    • why you chose these datasets/examples,
    • what advantages they have as a tool for learning,
    • and what disadvantages/difficulties/complexities they would introduce.

Episode Trial Run

Between sessions 7 and 8 of the Study Groups program, every lesson developer will teach one of the episodes they have been developing. You should choose that episode now. Where a lesson has multiple collaborators participating in the program, each participant should prepare to teach an episode, ideally in the same event as the other trial runs for that lesson. Given that you will be teaching it in three or four weeks’ time, you may want to focus on your chosen episode for the remainder of the Study Groups program. These trial run sessions are expected to take no more than 60 minutes per episode.

You can choose the format and audience for this trial run. It could:

  • take place online or in-person.
  • be a private session attended by invitation only, or open to external participants.
  • be delivered to members of your own network, community, or institution.
  • be delivered to the other Study Group participants, developers of lessons in The Carpentries Incubator, or The Carpentries community as a whole.

However you choose to do it, please make sure you schedule this session as soon a possible.

Feedback and experience collected from testing lesson material like this will be most useful if the audience taught closely matches the intended audience for the lesson itself. However this is often not easy for a short trial run, especially if your chosen episode does not appear early in the lesson (as audience members will not have benefited from learning the previous episodes first). In this case, try to ensure that members of the audience are briefed on what kind of feedback to give (see session 7 for more information).

The Curriculum Community Developer can provide support for these sessions. For example, by providing access to an account with a paid Zoom license for the trial run, by helping advertise the session to The Carpentries (sub)communities, by listing sessions on The Carpentries Community Calendar, etc.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Data Sets and Authentic Tasks

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What kind of data set is appropriate to use in a lesson?

  • Where can I find potential example data sets for my lesson?

  • What exercise formats could I use in my lesson?

Objectives

  • Identify suitable data sets and examples to use in their lesson.

  • Discuss the potential pedagogical value and challenges of using a given data set or example.

  • Describe three different formats of exercise that could be used for formative assessment in their lesson.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

A frequently encountered problem in lesson development is the conflict between using authentic example data sets/tasks and managing the order and complexity of the material being taught. We are often faced with a choice between

  1. presenting learners with a realistic data set, containing noise and artefacts that may be difficult to account for or remove, or
  2. using a simplistic or contrived example to provide a sequenced, hierarchical introduction of concepts to manage cognitive load
  • Which of these two would you prioritise for your lesson, and why?
  • Did the search for an appropriate data set or example affect the order and/or set of concepts you plan to cover in your lesson?
  • Are there any exercise formats you think would work particularly well for your lesson? Are there any that would work poorly? Explain your reasoning.

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 collaborator per lesson, ideally after discussion with their collaborators.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Writing Explanatory Content

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What is a good approach to writing examples?

  • What components can I combine to create a lesson?

  • How much content should I aim to cover in a single episode?

Objectives

  • Discuss the importance of example code blocks and explanatory figures.

  • Discuss the appropriate level of detail for the explanatory text in a given episode.

  • Identify three potential groups of users of their lesson pages.

  • Explain the function of the questions, objectives, and keypoints fields in the front matter of an episode page.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • What questions do you have about writing your lesson?
  • What are some of the advantages of writing exercises before the examples and explanations learners will need to be able to solve them?
  • What are some of the benefits of writing example code blocks before the “connective tissue” text between them?
  • What are some common mistakes and misconceptions you encounter from learners of the topic covered by your lesson?
    • How will you diagnose and address these in your lesson?
  • How do you plan to account for your expertise while you write 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.

  • (ALL) Complete (at least) the episode you plan to teach in your trial run, and request review when it is ready.
  • (ALL, if you have time this week) Complete a review of the episode you were assigned. See the callout below for more details about how you should approach the review.
  • (ALL) In preparation for your Trial Run of an episode, read the two Carpentries Instructor Training bonus modules on online training:

Episode Review

One of your homework tasks is to review an episode being developed by another Study Group participant. When completing this review, your goal is to provide constructive feedback to the author(s) about the design, structure, and content of the episode. You should consider everything you have learned about lesson development up to this point:

  • Are the objectives of the lesson specific and focused on the skills being taught?
  • Do the exercises assess the skills described in the learning objectives? Have they been designed with diagnostic power i.e. could an incorrect answer provide the instructor with information about the learner’s misconceptions?
  • Do the examples and tasks used in the episode feel authentic? Do you think learners will be motivated to gain the skills being taught?
  • Is the length of the episode appropriate?
  • Do you think the episode is designed to manage cognitive load effectively?

We estimate it will take ~30-60 minutes to review the episode.

Submit your review as an issue or multiple issues on the lesson repository, and add a link or links to the review to the Study Group’s shared notetaking document when you are done.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Preparing to Teach

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • How should I prepare to teach my lesson for the first time?

  • What feedback should I collect when teaching a new lesson?

  • What challenges are associated with teaching alone?

Objectives

  • Collect feedback on a trial run of a new episode.

  • Reflect on the experience of teaching.

  • Define potential improvements to their lesson based on the experience and feedback gathered.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • What feedback do you plan to collect from your learners during the trial run? Is there a particular aspect of your episode that you hope to gather feedback on?
  • How will you and your helper(s) work together during and after the trial run?
  • It is preferable not to teach alone. If you are the sole representative of your lesson in the Study Group, how will your preparations for teaching differ compared to what you do as a member of an instructor team?
  • How long do you expect it will take to teach your trial run of a single episode?
  • What are you looking forward to about the trial run?
  • What do you expect will be challenging?

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.

Note: there is a break in the program next week, to allow more time for these trial runs to be completed.

  • (ALL) If you have not already done so, complete a review of the episode you were assigned.
  • (ALL) Coordinate with the helper(s) you recruited for your Trial Run, to ensure they are prepared to support you in teaching and collecting feedback.
  • (ALL) In a scheduled “Trial Run,” teach (at least) one episode of your lesson.
  • (ALL) Open issues on your lesson repository to record the required changes to your lesson that were identified during/after the trial run.
  • (ALL) Before the Study Group next meets, reflect on the discussion prompts for the next session.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Break for Trial Runs

Overview

Teaching: min
Exercises: min
Questions
Objectives

Remember to read and reflect on the discussion prompts before the next session.

Key Points

Trial Run Debrief

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What did I learn about my lesson?

  • What will I do differently next time I teach?

  • What will I change in my lesson material before I next teach it?

  • What will I do differently when developing the rest of my lesson?

  • What do I need help with?

  • How did backwards design help me with this trial run?

Objectives

  • Identify three things that worked well in their episode.

  • Identify three things that could be improved in their episode.

  • Track problems with their lesson and potential improvements as issues on their repository.

Reading List

  • The discussion prompts below.

Discussion Prompts

  • How successful was your trial run? Consider this both from the perspective of the learners - how successfully do you think they learned the skills you were aiming to teach? - and your own - how helpful was the trial run as an exercise in gathering feedback about the ongoing development of your lesson?
  • What worked well about the material you have developed?
  • What needs changing before next time? Consider what needs changing about both the lesson and your approach to teaching it.
  • How well did you estimate how long the episode(s) would take to teach?
  • What do you need help with to improve your lesson?
  • Now that you have followed the process of backwards design from first steps to teaching the new lesson for the first time
    • what are some benefits of the backwards design approach to lesson development?
    • what are some of the disadvantages?
  • What do you wish you had known - or that you had been told - when you began developing this 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.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.

Collaborative Lesson Development

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What are the advantages of open, collaborative lesson development?

  • How can I encourage contributions to my lesson?

  • What tools and resources are available to support collaborative lesson development?

Objectives

  • Identify three ways to encourage contributions to their lesson.

  • List three resources that could benefit the ongoing development and maintenance of their lesson.

  • Review other lessons under development in [The Carpentries Incubator][incubator].

  • Describe the life cycle of a lesson.

  • Identify at least one thing they would like to learn more about.

Reading List

Discussion Prompts

  • What are some of the potential benefits of developing and maintaining a lesson in an open repository?
  • What are some of the potential challenges?
  • What features of GitHub can be used to promote and support collaborative lesson development?
  • What resources are available in The Carpentries and elsewhere to support and guide collaborative development?
  • What resource do you wish existed? Or wish you could find?
  • What questions do you have about the lesson life cycle described in the CDH?
  • What was the most valuable thing you learned during the Study Groups program?
  • What was missing from the Study Groups program?

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.

  • (ALL) Complete the Lesson Development Study Groups feeback survey.
  • (Optionally, ALL) write a post for The Carpentries blog, reflecting on your experience in this Study Groups program.

Key Points

  • Key points will be defined during discussion.