Instructor Trainers on The Carpentries

Applications Now Open for Carpentries Instructor Trainer Training Starting July 2026

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Do you look back fondly on your Carpentries Instructor Training and think, “I would love to teach that!”?

Do you want to help people learn to be more effective teachers, while continuing to develop your own teaching skill through regular engagement with our Instructor Training curriculum?

Maybe you are looking for another way to get involved and give back to The Carpentries community.

If any of these describe you, consider joining our vibrant community of Instructor Trainers. We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for anyone wishing to become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer!

The Carpentries Receives a Catalytic Award for Training at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Workshops and Instruction Team is thrilled to share that our project, Empowering Indigenous Research Through Open Science: Pedagogical Training at KBOCC, has received 15,000 USD in funding in the second round of the 2026 Open Scholarship Catalytic Awards Program.

This award supports a collaboration between The Carpentries and Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC) to strengthen open scholarship at a rural Tribal College and expand equitable access to research training within Indigenous communities.

Our People, Our Impact: How The Carpentries Community Multiplies Skills Worldwide

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Our People, Our Impact

The impact of The Carpentries has always been rooted in people.

Across universities, research institutes, libraries, and organisations around the world, community members are working together to build capacity for teaching foundational data and computational skills. At the center of this work are the people who teach, maintain, and build community around the programs that make our workshops possible. They then go on to introduce The Carpentries to other individuals at their institutions and empower them with the same skills. This is where the multiplier effect begins - one of the main benefits of an institutional Partnership with the Carpentries.

The Carpentries Partnership Program is Now Live!

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After many months in the making, we are thrilled to announce that The Carpentries Partnership program is finally launching today!

This is an exciting outcome of efforts by The Carpentries Core Team and broader community to redesign our former Membership program into a program that is responsive and best meets the needs of our partnering organisations and institutions.

Over the coming weeks, we will release a series of blog posts expanding on the value of having a Partnership with The Carpentries. In this blog post we provide an outline of the service offerings that can be included in a Partnership agreement beginning today.

Introducing the New Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee for 2025

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In March, members of the Instructor Trainer community were invited to vote in its fifth annual election for the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee (ITLC). ITLC provides governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of Instructor Trainers, and makes decisions on behalf of that community that affect our Instructor Training program and related policies. However, this year an election was not required because the number of candidates (four) was fewer than the number of available seats (five). All four candidates were thus appointed by default, and to ensure all seats were filled, the committee appointed a fifth member.

The Carpentries’ Handbooks Relaunched!

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today, 9 December 2024, we relaunched The Carpentries Handbooks! The Handbooks are compiled for the following community roles: Community Session Hosts, Curriculum Advisors, Instructors, Instructor Trainers, Lesson Developers, Lesson Program Governors, and Maintainers. Each Handbook provides detailed information for our volunteer community members to fulfill the duties of each role, and includes steps to follow when onboarding onto and offboarding from the role, the responsibilities and duties for each role, as well as a list of resources available to members to fulfill those responsibilities.

Introducing Our 2024 Cohort of Certified Instructor Trainers!

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In August, we began training a new cohort of community leaders to become certified as Instructor Trainers. These are the people who co-teach Instructor Training events, host teaching demonstrations, and participate in oversight and maintenance of our Instructor Training program as a whole. With 22 people, we are proud to say this is the largest cohort ever to join the Instructor Trainer community! Our new Instructor Trainers are joining us from universities, informatics centers, government departments, and corporations across Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Applications Now Open for Carpentries Instructor Trainer Training Starting August 2024

Wed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This blogpost has been updated to extend the application deadline

Do you look back fondly on your Instructor Training and think, “I would love to teach that!”? Do you want to help people learn to be more effective teachers, while continuing to develop your own teaching skill through regular engagement with our Instructor Training curriculum? Maybe you are looking for another way to get involved and give back to The Carpentries community. If any of these describe you, consider joining our vibrant community of Instructor Trainers!

Introducing the new Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee for 2024

Thu, 16 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In February, the Instructor Trainer community held its fourth annual election for the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee, a Committee that provides governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of Instructor Trainers, and makes decisions on behalf of that community that affect our Instructor Training program and related policies. Previously called the Trainers Leadership Committee during its first 3 years of existence (2021, 2022, and 2023) this Committee will now be referred to as the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee to emphasise its service specifically to the Instructor Trainer community. In their third year as an elected body, the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee oversaw two important changes:

Please Welcome our Newest Cohort of Certified Instructor Trainers!

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce the latest additions to our community of Carpentries Instructor Trainers! Instructor Trainers (also known as “Trainers”) co-teach Instructor Training, host teaching demonstrations, and participate in oversight and maintenance of our Instructor Training program. This cohort includes new Trainers from Argentina, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Teaching new Carpentries Instructors is a vital and impactful role in The Carpentries! We are proud to welcome these accomplished people joining our Trainer community and taking the lead to advance our mission around the world.

Welcome to the 2023 Trainers Leadership Committee!

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In February, the Trainer community held its third annual election for Trainers Leadership, a Committee that provides governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of Instructor Trainers, and makes decisions on behalf of that community that affect our Instructor Training program and related policies.

In their second year as an elected body, the Trainers Leadership Committee (TLC!) oversaw many important changes. These included:

The first implementation of the Certification Renewal process approved by the Trainer community in 2021. The careful oversight of Leadership made this a successful milestone, balancing goals to maintain a community that is active, sustainable, and inclusive.
Creation of a transparent process for proposal and scheduling of Trainer meetings and topics. This lays a foundation for increased community influence on and support for meetings that provide enriching and timely development opportunities.
Design and approval of recommendations to make changes to the Instructor Checkout process, based on a broad community assessment project implemented in 2022. The 2023 Leadership will be working with Core Team to plan implementation, with some changes tentatively scheduled for June.
Creation of more inclusive procedures for this committee, including use of asynchronous commenting and voting to achieve quorum. The challenge of operating groups with global representation is significant for all Carpentries subcommunities, and this group aims to create a model for procedures that are both effective and manageable for our volunteer participants in all time zones.
Updating community documentation to better reflect policies and procedures, including changes to the Certification Renewal process and documentation for this Committee. These changes were presented to the full community and ratified during the election in February.

Details on these and other accomplishments of this Committee are available in the reports and issues sections on the Trainers repository.

Carpentries Trainer Training Applications are Open - Apply by 27 February!

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The role of Instructor Trainer (aka “Trainer” and different from “Instructor” in Carpentries lingo) has a very special place in The Carpentries. The Trainer community is much smaller than the Instructor community – since we began we have certified only 147 Instructor Trainers, compared with 4,161 certified Instructors! We train Instructor Trainers 1-2 times per year, based on our ability to meet global demand for Instructor Training and the interest of member organisations in supporting Trainers to enhance their local efforts. If this role interests you, be sure to apply now!

Welcome to the 2022 Trainers Leadership Committee!

Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In February, the Trainer community held its second annual election for Trainers Leadership, a Committee intended to provide governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of amazing people who teach Instructor Training.

In their first year as an elected body, Trainers Leadership made great strides towards establishing their role and improving the support structures for the Trainer community. These included:

Establishing meeting procedures, adopting a variation on Martha’s Rules, identifying ways to use public and private channels to prioritize transparency, and creating GitHub templates and other structures to facilitate future work.
Reviewing and planning a replacement for the (former) Trainer Agreement. A new proposal for a Certification Renewal Process for Trainers was presented to the full community and ratified during the election in February.
Detailing governance and management structure for relevant processes, including oversight of Instructor checkout, Instructor Training curriculum maintenance, and the process of scheduling Trainer community meetings.
Overseeing a major update to the Instructor Training Curriculum
Defining a decision-making partnership with the Trainer community. Conversations so far suggest that Leadership is trusted and expected to take responsibility for action, reserving community consultation for focused, impactful choices.
Seeking and receiving approval from The Carpentries Executive Council as a formal Committee! This took time because this group has a governance role, making it different from other Committees, and there were not yet any guidelines for that aspect of their role. Trainers Leadership will continue to report to the EC as a Committee, but they can also now look to the new Lesson Program Governance policies where applicable.

As part of their commitment to transparency, details on these and other accomplishments of this productive group are available in the reports and issues sections on the Trainers repository!

Introducing Our First 2022 Cohort of Certified Instructor Trainers!

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In January, 2022, we began training for a new cohort of community leaders to become certified as Instructor Trainers. These are the people who co-teach Instructor Training events, host teaching demonstrations, and participate in oversight and maintenance of our Instructor Training program as a whole. With 16 people, we are proud to say that this is the largest and most globally and linguistically diverse cohort we have trained to date!

The Carpentries Instructor Training Curriculum has been Updated!

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout 2021, The Carpentries Core Team and Trainer community have been developing, discussing, and testing an updated version of our Instructor Training curriculum. It has now been merged into our repository on GitHub and submitted to Zenodo for official release!

Changes in this update include:

General changes to make the curriculum more useable and maintainable:
- Reduced hyperlinks to external websites
- Eliminated use of handouts for activities
- Reduced content on Carpentries policies; increased orientation to main sources of policy information
- Reduced use of jargon
- Reduced use of coding in examples to accommodate variable background knowledge
- Structural changes to improve timing and flow, allowing for more consistent breaks & alternate schedules
Content removed or transferred to optional exercises page (more relevant to lesson development, which is now a separate curriculum)
- Practice writing multiple choice questions
- Practice writing learner profiles
- Content on Bloom’s Taxonomy
Content changed or rearranged
- Previous episode on “Mindset” reduced and combined with “Motivation and Demotivation” episode
- Previous content on Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in “Motivation and Demotivation” episode moved to its own episode and expanded
- Previous references to formative assessment sprinkled across episodes are now highlighted as distinct uses
- Mental models are now explained using concept mapping and analogies
- Some strategies specific to teaching in-person are now presented with suggested adaptations for teaching online
- Content on Instructor Checkout is consolidated and clarified
Added or enhanced content
- Concluding a workshop (added to content on introductions)
- Team teaching practices, reinforcing common mechanics of Carpentries workshops

Goals reserved for the next update (not included yet):

Improvements to referencing (to replace previous use of hyperlinks)
Further improvements to new episode on EIA as well as additional bonus content on this topic (we have a grant and some awesome partners to help; please get in touch if you would like to be involved!)
Additional suggestions related to online or hybrid instruction. (These will continue to evolve separately, with content migrating into our core curriculum as needed/ requested by our community.)

Why Change a Good Thing?

Given the positive feedback we regularly receive on our program, you may be wondering why we would do anything more than minor maintenance!

Applications Now Open for Carpentries Trainer Training Starting January 2022

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to our New Instructor Trainers

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We want to introduce you to our 14 new Instructors Trainers! They have just completed Trainer Training, are badged, and ready to jump in. Many of them are already scheduled to teach their first Instructor Trainings in the next few months! This group is full of passion, excitement, and great ideas! They will be such an asset to our community!

Please Welcome our New Trainers:

Ben Chiewphasa

I am the Economics and Data Librarian with the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries. In my current role, I provide information literacy, data analysis, and data visualization support via consultations as well as workshops and library instruction. My research interests include critical data literacy, community engagement efforts in academic libraries, and government information dissemination. I initially sought Carpentries Instructor certification to meet the needs of University of Montana graduate students who were generally aware of available tools and approaches for wrangling data, but lacked the opportunities to actually learn these skills and consequently apply them to their own research. I think the skills I’ve learned from Carpentries Instructor Training have made me a better teacher overall—whether it’s leading Carpentries workshops or even teaching credit-bearing courses. My time with the Carpentries has motivated me in lowering learning barriers and empowering researchers to conduct efficient, reproducible, and open research.

Carpentries Trainer Training May-July 2021

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for anyone wishing to become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer in 2021!

Carpentries Jargon 101: What is an Instructor Trainer?

A flow chart of our Instructor Training program, from Instructor Trainers to Instructors to Learners.

Welcome to Trainers Leadership!

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In February 2021, the Instructor Trainer community elected its first Trainers Leadership panel and ratified a preliminary governance structure for this Carpentries sub-community. This panel and its documentation remains provisional, pending creation of guidelines and an approval process for sub-community governance by The Carpentries Executive Council. In the interim, they will proceed to flesh out procedural plans and will engage with The Carpentries Core Team to represent the interests of the Trainer community on policies and plans that pertain to Instructor Training.

Thank You SO MUCH Carpentries Community!

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The image above is a composite of our Core Team’s photos - from left to right,
first row : Zhian, Talisha, Sher!, Angelique, Kelly, Karen, Toby
second row: Serah, Omar, Maneesha, Kari, Erin, François

TL;DR

What a year! As we come to the close of 2020, in all our reflection and retrospectives and reporting and winding-down and planning for 2021 - the most accurate sentiment to sum up how we feel about our community in THANK YOU. There is so much we can collectively say as a team, in fact, we started to co-author our thank you notes to all of you, and seven pages into our collaborative document, we still have more to say, and the wise words of many of you at the back of our minds - short and succinct, that is how all Carpentries posts should be!

Welcome to our Newest Instructor Trainers!

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce that our most recent cohort of Instructor Trainers have completed their onboarding and received their badges! This most recent cohort includes 10 Trainers based in North American time zones as well as expanding our Trainer communities in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Their unique expertise and perspectives on training and community will be a tremendous resource for Carpentries Instructors to come!

Our new Trainers are:

Carpentries Trainer Training Fall 2020

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that our second and final round of applications is now open for anyone wishing to become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer in 2020!

A diagram of our Instructor Training program. Instructor Trainers are trained through Instructor Trainer Training and themselves teach Instructor Training to new Instructors. New Instructors teach Carpentries Workshops to learners.

Introducing our new Deputy Director of Instructor Training

Wed, 06 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We are ecstatic to welcome Dr. Kelly Barnes to The Carpentries Team. Kelly’s role as Deputy Director of Instructor Training is supported by a three year grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for scaling and sustaining our Instructor Training and Trainer Training programs. Her work will focus on developing an assessment strategy for instructor and trainer training and working with the Trainer community to maintain and modernise our Instructor Training curriculum. She will also work with The Carpentries Instructor Training Team to scale up our capacity for instructor training by improving our workflows and documentation. Welcome to the team Kelly!

Welcome to our Newest Instructor Trainers!

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce that our most recent cohort of Instructor Trainers have completed their onboarding and received their badges! This is a tremendous group, and many have already jumped in to begin teaching Instructor Training workshops and hosting Teaching Demonstrations! We are proud and fortunate to have them on board.

Our new Trainers are:

Angela Li (University of Chicago, USA)
Angelique Trusler (The Carpentries, South Africa)
Ann Backhaus (Pawsey Supercomputing Centre Perth, Australia)
Annika Rockenberger (University of Oslo, Norway)
Ariel Deardorff (University of California, San Francisco, USA)
Bianca Peterson (North-West University Potchefstroom, South Africa)
Evgenij Belikov (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Liz Stokes (Australian Research Data Commons Sydney, Australia)
Margareth Gfrerer (Higher Education Strategy Center, Ethiopia)
Matthias Liffers (Australian Research Data Commons / Curtin University, Australia)
Mike Trizna (Smithsonian Institution, USA)
Paola Corrales (Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera, Argentina)
Sara King (AARNet Adelaide, Australia)
Zachary Painter (Stanford University, USA)

Our Instructor Trainer Training program is still actively under development as we look to expand our capacity in the coming years. Huge thanks to these participants not only for their enthusiastic contributions to our discussion meetings, but also for their contributions to the continuing development of this training. We expect our curriculum for this program to be prepared for broader application in time for our next cohort.

Gratitude to the Growing Trainer Community

Fri, 13 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

History

The origins of the Trainer Community as we know it today can be traced back to 2012 when Greg Wilson invited a handful of experienced Software Carpentry Instructors to improve their teaching skills as part of a multi-week, online reading group and training course. Within a year, about 50 instructors completed the course to become certified Software Carpentry Instructors. In 2014, the first 3-day instructor training workshop was hosted in Toronto, Canada. Transitioning the course from weeks to days didn’t go as smoothly as Greg hoped, but Warren Code provided a lot of valuable advice that was used to refine the material, and by the end of 2014, the instructor training curriculum had the basic structure that is used today (1, 2, 3). In 2015, Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry began using the same curriculum to train new instructors, and this set the stage for transforming the curricula to serve train all future Carpentries Instructors. At this point in time, the demand for workshops was rapidly increasing and it was clear that our community needed a process for training new trainers.

Trainer Training 2020

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

We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for anyone wishing to become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer!

Livening Up Live Coding

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

An example of hardware carpentry, lol (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Carving New Coders

The Carpentries is a global non-profit initiative to help build foundational skills in coding and data science. For example, Software Carpentry contains lessons about the shell, git, R and Python, while Data Carpentry and Library Carpentry teach more domain-specific knowledge.

I took part in a two-day remote workshop to learn how to become a badged Carpentries instructor. There was a strong focus on understanding how people learn and how best to teach them to maintain motivation.

Continued support from IMLS for Library Carpentry

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In November 2017, the California Digital Library (CDL) announced a two-year Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant funded project to further advance the scope, adoption, and impact of Library Carpentry across the US. The grant enables CDL and the University of California Curation Center (UC3) to host Chris Erdmann, the Library Carpentry Community and Development Director, and his work with community members, Carpentries staff, and governance groups to integrate Library Carpentry as a lesson program, further develop the curriculum and lessons, grow the community of Carpentries instructors with library and information backgrounds, and continue outreach to raise awareness about Library Carpentry and The Carpentries in the broader library community.

Instructor Trainer Training: Knowing When to Hold ‘Em

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this blog post is, first and foremost, to let those who are eagerly awaiting our next Instructor Trainer Training know that we will not be running one in October-December 2019 as we had previously planned. Our next Trainer onboarding opportunity will most likely come in January 2020, with applications in November 2019.

(Instructor Training events, in contrast, run year round and individual applications are always accepted here. Access to Instructor Training is also available through Organisational Memberships.)

Reflections from a Carpentries Train the Trainer Workshop

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post was originally published on Alexander Refsum’s personal blog.

I have spent the two last days at a “Train the Trainers” workshop organised by The Carpentries project. Here I will summarise some thoughts on the workshop, and things that I will take with me for my own teaching practice.

The Carpentries

The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry communities, with a shared mission to teach foundational computational and data science skills to researchers. I have taken several Carpentries lessons over the last years, organised by volunteers here at the University of Oslo.

Highlights from the recent Instructor Training in South Africa

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa, hosted its first Carpentries instructor training from 18th to 20th of March 2019. This training was conducted by us - Katrin Tirok (Durban), Samar Elsheikh (University of Cape Town), and Saymore Chifamba (Siyavula, Cape Town), the three brand new trainers in South Africa, and Malvika Sharan (EMBL) from Germany.

Katrin organised this training in association with the Research Flagship in Big Data and Informatics at UKZN and the RCCPII Capacity Development Initiative managed by Talarify. Co-funding the training allowed us to invite participants from different institutions to enhance the networking of future instructors and convey the idea of a larger community right at the training. Our participants came from the University of Fort Hare, University of Zululand, Rhodes University, Mangosuthu University of Technology, TENET as well as from UKZN. They represented postgraduate students, lecturers, professors and support staff coming from the computer, environmental, health, information and library, life, and social sciences.

Announcing our January 2019 Instructor Trainer Cohort

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We recently put out a call for applications from members of the community who want to become Carpentries Instructor Trainers. This round of applications followed closely on the heels of a prior cohort, and was opened to meet member demand in our rapidly-growing communities. If you missed the short window for this application, never fear – we do plan to run another starting around September 2019! Contact Karen Word (krword@carpentries.org) if you would like to be notified when applications open.

Apply to Become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer!

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Are you an active Instructor looking to take your involvement with The Carpentries to the next level? Or, are you an experienced educator who has found something to love in our Instructor Training curriculum? Are you excited by the thought of going deep with our curriculum through reading and online discussion of the practices that underpin the success of our workshops?

If so, we would like to hear from you! We are about to open a new round of Instructor Trainer Training, an 8-week reading group and on-boarding to become a certified Carpentries Instructor Trainer. (Note that this is different from becoming a certified Instructor. Instructors lead workshops; Trainers lead Instructor Training events. Instructor applications are accepted on a rolling basis and may be found here.) Becoming a Trainer is a fantastic opportunity to grow your own training skills, which are increasingly in demand both in academia and industry.

Announcing our new Instructor Trainers-in-training

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We recently put out a call for applications from members of our community who want to become Carpentries Trainers. The call was open to current Instructors and other qualified community members, for example, people with existing teaching or training experience.

Our Trainers are key to the continuing growth and success of The Carpentries. They teach our Instructor Training curriculum, which then brings new Instructors into The Carpentries community.

We are excited to announce that the following people will be joining the next round of training to start on 10 September. It is great to see the many different locations which will help us extend our reach.

Apply to become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer!

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Are you an active Instructor looking to take your involvement with The Carpentries to the next level? Or perhaps you are an experienced educator who has found something to love in our Instructor Training curriculum? Or maybe you want to understand more of the theory that underpins the success of our workshops?

If so, we would like to hear from you, as we are about to open a new round of Instructor Trainer training. This is a fantastic opportunity to grow your own training skills, which are increasingly in demand both in academia and industry.