Community Discussions on The Carpentries

Ringing in the New Year: Instructor Community Accomplishments, Updates and Resources

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

2025 was a year of growth, learning, and achievement for the Instructor community and the Workshops and Instruction Team (WIT). Together, we had many accomplishments, including the delivery of 29 Centrally-Organised workshops with no cancellations, welcoming 294 new Instructors into the community, and hosting two Carpentries-sponsored workshops that were open and free to the public (a long-time goal for WIT!).

Pretix for Community Sessions is now live!

We’re excited to carry this positive momentum into 2026. We already have three Centrally-Organised workshops in progress and filled by Instructors, with more planned for March and April. We’re also happy to share that registration for Community Sessions is now live in Pretix. This includes Instructor Meetings and a new event: Instructor Practice Sessions (more on this below). Pretix is an open-source event registration and ticketing system that offers several benefits, including better privacy, automated email reminders, and the ability to easily add events to your calendar.

You are Invited to Our Next Community Session Host Onboarding Call

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Are you passionate about sharing knowledge and building connections within The Carpentries community? Do you enjoy discussing open education, inclusive teaching, or community building? Are you interested in helping others learn more about how The Carpentries works and how they can get involved? Then consider becoming a Community Session Host! Join us on August 19 at 14:00 UTC for our next Community Session Host Onboarding Call.

We are seeking community hosts to lead brief community sessions:

Community Session Report: Essential Knowledge and Common Misconceptions

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In February, The Carpentries hosted the second of three pairs of AI and The Carpentries community discussion sessions. The topic of this pair of sessions was Essential Knowledge and Common Misconceptions. For the Curriculum Team, the primary objective of these discussions was to identify the aspects of LLMs and their use in programming/data science that are most important to discuss during a Carpentries workshop. This post summarises the main points raised and the perspectives shared by community members who joined the sessions.

Community Session Report: The Ethics of Teaching LLMs in Carpentries Workshops

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In January, The Carpentries hosted the first of three pairs of AI and The Carpentries community discussion sessions. The topic of this first pair of sessions was The Ethics of Teaching Large Language Models (LLMs) in Carpentries Workshops. They featured an exploration of various ethical implications of the development and use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and GitHub Copilot, and a conversation about the scope for engaging with those implications while teaching Carpentries workshops. This post summarises the main points raised and the perspectives shared by community members who joined the sessions.

Teaching LLM Assistants in Carpentries Workshops, part 2

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Following our previous post summarising a pair of community discussions on the topic of teaching the use of LLM “assistants” such as ChatGPT in Carpentries workshops, here we describe the Curriculum Team’s plans to coordinate relevant updates to lessons.

Including discussion of LLMs in workshops

One key takeaway from November’s community discussions was the observation that learners are using/will use LLM assistants when learning to code, whether we want them to or not. In this context, we believe that our goal as Instructors should be to help learners develop a working mental model of how these tools can be used, the kind of task they are (and are not) suited to, and their strengths and limitations.

Teaching LLM Assistants in Carpentries Workshops, part 1

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Generative AI “assistants” such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, based on large language models (LLMs), have gained a lot of attention over recent years and are impacting how people learn about and practice coding and data science. Some members of The Carpentries community have reported observing learners using ChatGPT and similar tools to assist them in and after workshops. Others have reported on efforts to educate members of their local communities about the models behind these tools, their advantages and limitations, and how to judiciously approach their use.

Reigniting Community: Reflections from Coffee with The Carpentries Executive Director

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Hello Carpentries Community,

Over the past six months, I’ve enjoyed our “Reigniting Community” sessions, where we’ve had some heartfelt conversations about our resources and operations. It’s been a time of listening, learning, and growing together, and I’m excited to share some key takeaways with you.

We began the series in January, with a candid discussion about the tough decisions we faced regarding staff layoffs. It was a moment of honesty as we navigated the impacts on our organisation, striving to be transparent about our strategies for recovery and growth ahead.

New opportunities to lead Carpentry-Con-type programming year-round

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A blog post published in February 2023 highlighted findings and four key recommendations from the most recent CarpentryCon evaluation report. In this post, it was announced that CarpentryCon would be pushed back by one year and would be hosted in South Africa in 2025 instead of 2024. The post also noted that, due to this schedule change, we would be introducing new opportunities to lead CarpentryCon-type programming year-round. We are excited to announce that the time has come!

Join Us to Learn More about CarpentryCon @ Home in 2022

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In October, The Carpentries Core Team announced that we will be hosting a virtual CarpentryCon next year. Since then, we have identified four volunteers from the community to serve as Task Force Co-chairs:

Annajiat Alim Rasel is a certified Instructor with The Carpentries and is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rabea Müller is the Regional Coordinator for the DACH region and is located in Köln, Germany
Trisha Adamus is an Instructor Trainer and is based in Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Jesse Johnston is a Library Carpentry Instructor and is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Annajiat and Rabea will be leading planning efforts in the eastern hemisphere with the support of Angelique Trusler, African Capacity Development Manager for The Carpentries. Trisha and Jesse will be leading efforts in the western hemisphere with the support of myself, Director of Community for The Carpentries. This will ensure we accommodate all time zones in our planning so that everyone in the community can fully participate no matter where they live.

Updates on the Member Organisation Council

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

One of the benefits of being a member organisation with The Carpentries is that you hold a seat on The Carpentries Member Council. This is where member organisations and The Carpentries leadership can discuss what is working and what needs revamping or tweaking. At our last council meeting, recruiting helpers and adjusting to teaching online came up as challenges. Since then, we have begun to provide our Instructors additional training in online teaching and host organisations received templates to support with helper recruitment, enabling our community to teach over 588 workshops online since March 2020.

Carpentries Community Conversation with the Executive Council

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On Friday, 22 February, 2021, two sessions were held for The Carpentries Community to meet and interact with The Carpentries Executive Council (EC) - to hear from about governance in The Carpentries and the work the EC is currently doing.

The hour- long discussion included (i)guided discussion and a (ii) Q&A session. Here is a summary of the conversation.

Questions and answers from the guided discussion

Provide a brief history of the Executive Council in The Carpentries

When Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry merged on January 1, 2018, it was decided to continue the tradition of a community-led steering council that both organisations had. The name chosen was Executive Council. It was decided to have 9 people on the council, 4 community-elected (any community member can stand for EC election) and 5 council-elected. Nominations for Council elected seats can come from the community, the Council, or Core Team, and the nominees do not necessarily have to be community members. This helps to have a wide range of expertise in the EC. See also this blog post from 2018.

Recruiting new members to the Code of Conduct Committee

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries are committed to providing a welcoming and supportive environment for all people, and our [Code of Conduct]({{ site.code_of_conduct_url }}) (CoC) is the framework for this commitment. The Code of Conduct Committee (CoCC) is responsible for managing the Code of Conduct, handling reports of conduct violations, and advocating for the CoC in the community.

The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee is currently recruiting new members. We seek 3-4 community members who are passionate about ensuring that The Carpentries is a welcoming space, who have time to dedicate to the committee, and who bring diversity to the committee. In addition, it is beneficial, but not necessary, to have previous experience with this kind of work.

Outcome of October Community Discussion for Nordic and Baltic Countries

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This blogpost is repost of a blogpost at CodeRefinery and is based on the notes made on Carpentries Community Discussion Etherpad on the 30th Oct. 2020.

Summary

The Carpentries say “never touch learners keyboard”. Should instructors rigidly follow this advice in online workshops or should we be more flexible in order to overcome the challenges of teaching online?

On October 30th 2020, a Carpentries community discussion was held with discussion focused on Nordic and Baltic countries. The host was Annika Rockenberger (Carpentries instructor trainer). Including the host and the co-host, totally 15 participants joined: 6 from Norway, 3 from Sweden, 3 from Finland, 2 from Denmark, and 1 from Bangladesh (Thanks for joining, all!). A complete list of the participants can be found below.

Meet our 2020-2021 Cohort of Instructor Development Committee Leaders

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Instructor Development Committee (IDC) leaders in The Carpentries lead efforts to organise Community Discussions, set up mentoring cycles, and advocate for activities and initiatives that promote professional development, equity and inclusivity for Carpentries instructors. During their year-long term, IDC leaders also work on special projects aimed at improving instructor resources in The Carpentries, and facilitate conversations with other Carpentries instructors to brainstorm and discuss matters arising.

The Instructor Development Committee (formerly known as the Mentoring Subcommittee) was established in 2015 to develop and maintain a mentorship program to support instructors as they progress through training, teaching, curriculum development, and other community-related activities. The committee helps promote community-building and networking by providing virtual spaces where instructors from all over the world can share teaching success stories and discuss strategies for overcoming challenges. You can find more information about the IDC and its activities in the Instructor Development section of our handbook.

Carpentries Community Discussion Host Onboarding Now Open!

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Carpentries Community Discussions are not only part of the check-out process but also provides a platform for all instructors (new and experienced) to discuss any questions (i.e. online workshop administration, how to adapt or using cloud instances they might have; or the opportunity to share unique teaching experiences post-workshop. With the move towards more online workshops, debriefing and sharing what worked and what didn’t is an important process of our community. The current number of hosts is a small fraction of our community so we are looking to expand the number and diversity of perspectives of hosts. If you are interested, please help us grow the community of discussion hosts.

Pre- and Post-workshop discussions : Six months into 2020

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries Community Discussions are designed for everyone in The Carpentries community interested in learning, educating and advocating for teaching foundational coding and data science skills globally. Pre and Post-workshops discussions are designed for those getting ready to teach or having recently taught to come discuss their workshop with the community. Many Carpentry workshops globally are now hosted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic; these discussions also allow instructors to share unique online teaching experiences to instructors in-training who join the call during their check-out process.

Announcing a New Series of Online Workshop Themed Discussions

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As work on The Carpentries Online Workshops Pilot continues, The Carpentries is launching a new series of monthly themed discussions, led by members of The Carpentries Core Team. The goal of these calls is to discuss ongoing work around online workshops — from changes to workshop registration to best practices in using technology to manage the shift to online-only workshops.

Additionally, these themed discussions will allow time for direct communication with our community on experiences, learnings, challenges and questions arising from online workshops.

Member Survey Results and the next Member Organisation Council Meetings

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Member Organisation Council Meetings held June 2019 were full of great conversation, questions and tips related to building local community around computational training using The Carpentries Membership. 34 representatives from 29 different Member Organisations worldwide joined four calls across three days and times to discuss all things Carpentries. We discussed the best format for regular instructor meetups, identifying local instructors, connecting to geographically local communities, the optimal number of instructors to meet training demand, and roles beyond that of instructor that facilitate workshop organisation, just to mention a few. For a more complete account, check out the meeting notes !

Teaching Software Carpentry at the University of Botswana

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On 16-19 September, I taught a Software Carpentry workshop at the University of Botwsana.

The workshop was hosted by the Southern Africa Innovation Support (SAIS) Universities-Industry-Government (UIG) Co-creation Platform and had more than 30 learners.

Because Professor Tshiamo Motshegwa was travelling during the workshop, Badisa Mosesane was in charge of talk about The Carpentries and introduce me.

Badisa Mosesane explaining about The Carpentries.

During the workshop, I taught navigating files and directories with Bash, working With files and directories with Bash, for-loop with Bash, Git, GitHub, for-loop with Python, if-clause with Python, Python functions, Python scripts, debugging Python code, and Make.

The Carpentries Canadian Community Discussion

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries Canadian Regional Coordinators will be hosting a Community Discussion on Monday, October 7th at 18:00 UTC as a follow-up to our last call about constructing The Carpentries in Canada.

During this call we will cover several topics including:

Establishing instructor communities in any city that has potentially interested coordinators,
Recruiting community members to assist coordinating activities from a national perspective,
Expanding Canada’s administrative team,
Exploring the development of Carpentries related programming for the National Science & Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRAs), and
General discussion of any topics that participants would like to raise.

Anyone interested in the future of The Carpentries community in Canada is invited to attend and contribute. Please sign up on the Etherpad. We hope to see you there.

Lessons learned from the Community Discussion on Burnout

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

How do you sustain a community of volunteers? “Burnout” has been the subject of recent attention in widely-shared articles such as How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. But what can we do as individuals and members of a volunteer-based community to prevent - and mitigate the effects of - burnout? Stuart Geiger, staff ethnographer at the UC Berkeley Institute for Data Science, and Dorothy Howard, PhD student at the UC San Diego Department of Communication, are studying burnout in the context of the visible/invisible work of open-source software sustainability and maintenance, as part of a research project funded by the Sloan and Ford Foundations. They recently led a very popular Carpentries community discussion, using their preliminary research findings as a starting point for further discussion about burnout in the Carpentries context. The conversation was broadly applicable - and pertained to volunteer work, day jobs, and hobbies, all in pursuit of that lofty goal of “work-life balance.”

IDC meetings 8/19/2019: Findings from community discussion surveys

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

IDC Project: Findings from the Community discussion surveys

The Instructor Development Committee has been working hard on their first project for the year: looking at the data from the community discussion host and participants surveys. We will be discussing our findings at the IDC meetings on 08-19-2019. In advance of the meeting, we’d like to give you the highlights of our findings:

Main Findings:

Hosts and co-hosts/notetakers

In 2019, 21 Carpentries community members have hosted discussion sessions.
A little over half of these (12) are volunteer. The others are Carpentries staff.
On average, we have 12 discussions per month, and 7 unique hosts per month. That means each host has to take 1-2 sessions per month.
Only about half of the discussion sessions have notetakers
Over three quarters of attendees are attending the sessions for pre-post debriefs or instructor checkout

Attendees

The vast majority of sessions have more than 10 attendees
The number of community members attending for instructor checkout is greater than all other purposes by a factor 50.
Most attend Pre- and Post-Workshop Discussions, but the satisfaction is greatest for the Themed Discussions.
The discussion host ratings are consistently high
Most attendees would recommend these sessions to others

Conclusions

Overall, the data indicates that our discussion sessions are well attended, which is a good thing! However, only half of the sessions have notetakers, which can make hosting a session with 10+ people difficult. The satisfaction and host ratings are also positive. But, many sessions only have attendees who are doing checkout. While it leaves more time for questions about the checkout process, the attendees do not benefit from hearing from an experienced instructor about a real workshop. Thus, we have questions for the community:

Carpentries Community Discussion on PREreview.org

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Scholarly peer review is broken

As defined by the Merriam-Webster English dictionary, peer review ¹is “a process by which something proposed (as for research or publication) is evaluated by a group of experts in the appropriate field”. But who gets to decide who is the “expert” and who isn’t? What are the criteria by which a proposed research article is selected or rejected? Different journals have different policies, but for the most part this process is opaque and done behind closed doors. This opaqueness might also be the root of a system whose players are disproportionately male (Helmer et al. 2017²; Lerback, American Geophysical Union, and Brooks Hanson 2016³; “Nature’s Sexism” 2012⁴; Fox, Sean Burns, and Meyer 2016⁵) and from North America or European countries (Chawla 2018⁶; Murray et al. 2018⁷). As part of a global push for transparency in scholarship, we at PREreview believe we need better ways to find, train, and engage researchers in peer review.

The Carpentries in Australia: Community Discussion Summary

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

To coincide with the recent announcement of an official Regional Coordinator for Australia, we held an online community discussion last month.

There was a great turnout for the discussion (15+ people) with participants describing a wide variety of Carpentries activities happening around the country. While traditional two-day workshops are still very common, Carpentries lessons and approaches are being adapted for use in longer courses such as the CSIRO Data School as well as shorter offerings from not-for-profits (e.g. Intersect) and university departments (e.g. Research Platform Services) that provide training for researchers on a regular basis. Carpentries workshops are also being incorporated into Research Bazaar events around Australia, which are multi-day on-campus festivals promoting digital literacy.

Tips and Tricks for Teaching R

Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Following a few Data Carpentry workshops, we (a.k.a. Bianca and Katrin) shared some of the strategies we employ to enhance participants’ R learning experience in a Community Discussion with other Carpentries Instructors from Africa. In this post, we will expound on some of these strategies and welcome you to try them in the workshops you facilitate, and share your outcomes with the broader Carpentries community.

Pen-on-paper exercise

In the R episodes on Data Manipulation and on Visualisation, code and challenges become quite complex and may contain new concepts of coding as well as of data analysis for novices. Individual code blocks can easily run over several lines when using pipes (%>%) or when building plots with ggplot, thus increasing cognitive load for learners. To enhance understanding of the concepts behind the R commands and also to give participants a break from sitting in front of the computer, we included group exercises with pen and paper. We divided participants into groups of four to five and gave each group a blank sheet of paper (it works particularly nice with big sheets stuck to a wall so the groups can stand around it). We then wrote a challenge on the Workshop Etherpad/whiteboard and asked the groups to discuss and write down the steps (not necessarily the commands) they would need to subset their data accordingly.

Carpentries Community Discussion Sessions - A Primer for New Discussion Hosts

Sun, 05 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In the past, we had discussion sessions for Carpentries Instructors that took place twice a week and provided a platform where experienced and novice instructors could discuss previous and upcoming workshops, share challenges and victories with the community, and complete their Carpentries Instructor checkouts.

These sessions had a few challenges that included timezone differences, limited availability of time slots for checkouts and debriefs, to name but a few. We found it difficult to meet all the demands for Carpentries discussion sessions, and felt the need to relax the discussion session requirement for checkouts. The community however, felt it necessary to keep the discussion sessions as a requirement, but in a different way with multiple pathways to participate.

Constructing The Carpentries Community in Canada

Thu, 02 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Are you in Canada and interested in growing the Canadian Carpentries Community? Join us for a Community Discussion on May 22nd at 12:30pm Eastern to get this growth started. In this call you’ll have the opportunity to connect with Canadian Carpentries community members and learn how to empower instructors to run more workshops in more locations across Canada. The Canadian Regional Coordinators (John Simpson and James DesJardins) will be on hand to give a summary of the workshops that are currently offered and to answer any questions about the process that might come up. By the end of the call we hope to have a volunteer or two join us as we continue coordinating the growth of the Canadian Carpentries Instructor Community. Participants will leave with ideas they can implement in their local community for growth and development.

Introducing the New Carpentries Instructor Development Committee

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Instructor Development Committee (originally the Mentoring Subcommittee) was established in 2015 to develop and maintain a mentorship program to support instructors as they progress through training, teaching, curriculum development, and other community-related activities. The committee helps promote community-building and networking by providing virtual spaces where instructors from all over the world can share teaching success stories and discuss strategies for overcoming challenges. Any Carpentries community member is welcome to join the Instructor Development Committee. You can find more information in the Instructor Development section of our handbook.

The Carpentries Australia: Community Discussion

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Back in February 2013, Greg Wilson (co-founder of Software Carpentry) flew out to Sydney and Melbourne to run the first ever Software Carpentry “bootcamps” outside of Europe and North America. Those of us involved in those initial workshops could not have anticipated just how quickly things would grow. Fast forward six years and here’s how far we’ve come in Australia:

150+ workshops
3,750+ learners
130+ qualified instructors
7 member institutions

Past Software Carpentry workshops in Australia

Leadership Opportunities with The Carpentries: Interest Meeting April 3, 2019

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Revisiting the 2016 Mentorship Subcommittee Roadmap reminded us how important volunteerism is, especially as pertains to growing and developing our instructor pool. Our past Instructor Development Committee (formerly Mentorship Subcommittee) Co-Chairs (Jamie Hadwin, Marian Schmidt, Toby Hodges, and Christina Koch) worked hard to set the course for creating a positive, cohesive, diverse, and open worldwide community of instructors and helpers for The Carpentries. We owe our readiness to onboard the next leaders of the Instructor Development Committee (IDC) to the efforts of these four outgoing co-chairs, and thank them for their immense contributions!

Bring CarpentryCon 2020 to Your City – Call for Themes and Venues

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

CarpentryCon 2020 planning begins

CarpentryCon has become the community tested and community approved networking and skills-building event for The Carpentries community. Its international conference last year, and the different CarpentryConnect events across the globe aimed at connecting regional communities have offered a common in-person platform to connect with our international colleagues, develop ideas, gain new skills and experience a genuine sense of belonging.

Personally, this was only one of the several events that I have attended/organised in my career where I felt at home, and as Fotis Psomopoulos says: “this event had a special emotional element unlike any other”. To recreate the same (or even better) experience in 2020, the CarpentryCon TaskForce has already started to plan the logistics for CarpentryCon 2020.

The Carpentries in New Zealand

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On 11-March the New Zealand (NZ) Regional Coordinator will be hosting a Community Discussion for anyone interested in or currently involved with The Carpentries program. Here, the many faces of The Carpentries in NZ can touch base and share ideas.

We will discuss the history of The Carpentries in New Zealand, talk about where the community is headed, and, most importantly, highlight the support channels that you have access to as a member of The Carpentries in New Zealand.

Code of Conduct Documentation Open for Comments

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updates to The Carpentries Code of Conduct Documentation

The Carpentries Code of Conduct is core to who we are, because it describes how we interact with each other in our community. The Code of Conduct isn’t just a piece of (virtual) paper though; it’s how we communicate about it, the guidelines for how we handle reports, and how the Code of Conduct committee - a group of volunteers committed to working with staff and the Executive Council - responds to incidents and updates guidelines as needed.

Updates on Instructor Checkout Requirements

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The goals of our instructor discussion sessions are for new trainees to meet community members and learn more about how a workshop is run, and how to prepare. We are fulfilling the community component with teaching demos, and more instructor training is happening online. Future instructors are meeting other members of the community through their trainings. Additionally, if instructors want to learn more about running a workshop, it may make more sense for them to do it right before they start preparing when they have questions.

Introducing the Instructor Development Committee

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

After some discussion, at recent meetings of the Mentoring Committee and on the associated GitHub repository, members of the Committee have chosen to rename the group. We will now be the Instructor Development Committee.

The discussion came about from an acknowledgement that “Mentoring” implied that the Committee focussed solely on mentoring activities such as the Mentoring Groups Program (more on which below). While it’s true that part of what we do is to support the amazing work that Kari Jordan and others do with mentoring groups, that’s only one aspect of the conversations that we have at our monthly meetings and the activity of the Committee members outside of those meetings.

Join an Onboarding Session for Hosting Discussion Sessions

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Instructor discussions are important to our community to help Instructors prepare to teach, to debrief after Instructors have taught, and to help new Instructors complete their certification as Carpentries Instructors. Sessions are regularly run and are generally well-attended. Feedback to the Mentoring Subcommittee proves they are highly valued.

Toby Hodges recently put out a call to recruit new session hosts so we can meet continuing demand for these sessions.

Why it is worthwhile

As someone who has hosted a few in her time, I would say that, far from being hard work, these sessions are a joy to run and be part of. Meeting new people in our wide global community is always stimulating. People in discussions I have hosted have ranged from ‘old hands’ coming back to share their workshop experience to new members of the community about to teach for the very first time and bursting with questions. Attendees have been based in Japan, the US, South Africa, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands … the list goes on.

Get More Involved with The Carpentries' Instructor Community

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hi folks,

Are you looking for a way to get more involved in The Carpentries instructor community? Would you like to meet more members of the community, help new instructors to prepare for organising and teaching a workshop, and benefit from the experience that other instructors have gained from teaching? We are looking for volunteers to host instructor discussion sessions.

These sessions are regular, one-hour online meetings that bring together trainee and experienced instructors to reflect on teaching experience and prepare for future workshops. The job of the host is to participate in and facilitate these discussions, and to make sure that all participants have an equal opportunity to participate in the conversation.