Pilot enhanced instructor training as graduate (for-credit) course

[ndporter]

Summary

I propose to work with my soon-to-be colleague, Jesse Sadler (Instructor and DC:SS R maintainer), to adapt the instructor training, combined with some or all of the collaborative lesson development training and maintainer onboarding, to be taught as an interdisciplinary graduate course, to be piloted at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia, USA) during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Background

Virginia Tech has a large instructor community, and over time, significant interest in instructor training has developed among graduate students, many of whom receive only limited training in any sort of pedagogy. Instructor training for graduate students does not always result in long-term volunteers at our institution (they graduate) but it creates deep social networks and promotes the long-term development and spread of the Carpentries model and organization.

Traditionally, instructor training has been taught as a 2-day (or 4 half-day) event, and recently, has only rarely been made available in a dedicated way for local communities. This propose attempts to remedy that by developing a full-semester elective course that graduate students from a variety of disciplines can take to improve their teaching skills and gain both credentials and software/curriculum development and collaboration experience.

Implementation

This proposal would require:

• approve development of more distributed schedule of training delivery (trainer leadership)
• adapt and combine IT with other relevant curricula to create syllabus (VT team)
• optimize process of ensuring all elements of curriculum remain current with ongoing changes to source material with minimal maintenance (VT team with advice of trainer/maintainer communities)
• determine any potential variance to standard trainer training and/or instructor training costs and application/checkout processes, as well as membership levels (trainer leadership)
• ensure local communities wishing to teach can train at least 2 trainers (Sher and trainer leadership)

Decision Factors

Pros

• scale and diversify instructor community
• support curricular goals and Carpentries mission
• improve potential membership value by associating tuition credits (thus income) with membership
• integrating lesson development and maintenance in instructor training may improve voluntarism rates
• development work primarily takes place at university (as part of existing faculty roles), rather than requiring Carpentries to recruit

Cons

• Time spent adapting and maintaining material
• English only at pilot
• Requires 2 local trainers (or 2 trainers available throughout the semester if taught online)
• Limited to more resourced institutions with adequate graduate student populations

Possible Alternatives

• Decline to create semester-length training
• Create alternative(s) to tuition- and institution-based models that allow more diverse population to partcipate in extended course-style training

[jcoliver]

Please feel free to reuse/remix the materials at https://biodiversitydatasciencecorp.github.io/Instructional-Pedagogy/ (GitHub source at https://github.com/BiodiversityDataScienceCorp/Instructional-Pedagogy), which is itself based on the Carpentries Instructor Training curriculum. The audience is a little different (instructors/faculty), as is the pacing (four weeks, two meetings of two hours/week).

[ragamouf]

Very interesting! I really like this idea, and I have a lot of questions. Perhaps the issue template frustrates clarity somewhat. I need to know why the pros listed are pros, and what mitigations strategies you suggest to lessen the risk posed by the cons. Currently the pros are clearly your motivations; these may need to be reframed as how this project will meet current challenges for The Carpentries, and more specifically, what problems this solves for the TLC.

1. Because I'm interested in the range of tailored Instructor training to specific audiences, how long do you expect the curriculum development (to design the course) to take? (@jcoliver what was your experience there?)
2. What increase in assessment load on the trainers is expected? How would the teaching/assessment load differ from current short-format training?
3. What graduate outcomes and curriculum requirements are necessary to fulfil criteria for a VT course? What do you need to do for VT processes to stand this up?
4. Can you explain this pro a little further?

improve potential membership value by associating tuition credits (thus income) with membership

5. How big, how many students, how do you intend to evaluate the pilot?

[ndporter]

1. Because I'm interested in the range of tailored Instructor training to specific audiences, how long do you expect the curriculum development (to design the course) to take? (@jcoliver what was your experience there?)

I expect to draft the curriculum by December 2024, to pilot either in Spring 2025 or Fall 2024. Most of the curriculum, already exists; the main challenge will be to adapt the 3 sources (instructor training, maintainer onboarding, and collaborative lesson development) to be effective in this different format.

2. What increase in assessment load on the trainers is expected? How would the teaching/assessment load differ from current short-format training?

Trainers leading these workshops would ultimately be responsible to provide grades for participants. As I imagine it, completing instructor certification (the steps, if not the formal certification) would be a significant part. If lesson contributions or design are part of the course, those could likewise be evaluated. At the graduate level, I wouldn't anticipate needing the same volume of weekly assignments with grades to keep people accountable.

3. What graduate outcomes and curriculum requirements are necessary to fulfil criteria for a VT course? What do you need to do for VT processes to stand this up?

A new course at VT can be taught twice as "Special Studies" without going through university governance. A form and syllabus are required to submit the course to the registrar. It would presumably be offered as a GRAD course (link in right column of catalog). It would need to offer A-F grading and have a defined number of credits. I can't find anything else in the graduate catalog here.

Sometime before the 3rd time it's taught, it would have to be submitted for approval and a unique permanent course number through the Commision on Graduate and Professional Studies & Policies.

4. Can you explain this pro a little further?

improve potential membership value by associating tuition credits (thus income) with membership

Yes. My intention here was to point out that the option for members to offer instructor training as a for-credit course could encourage more institutions to become members or upgrade to a higher tier of membership, in the process increasing sustainable funding streams and engagement for The Carpentries. Our new instructor training model only allows certification to be offered through paid seats, thus even institutions that self-organize instructor training would need to pay membership if they wanted to include certification as an option - but that membership could be funded (indirectly) through tuition.

5. How big, how many students, how do you intend to evaluate the pilot?

Initially, we would probably pilot with 10-15 students (conveniently also within the seats offered by a platinum membership.

[jcoliver]

Apologies for tardy reply. Time estimates:

• Initial content development/adaptation: 23 hours
• Revisions based on feedback from first implementation: 7 hours
• Revisions based on feedback from second implementation: 2 hours

HTH

[ndporter]

Thanks @jcoliver those are not at all unmanageable if ours was similar time demands.

[ragamouf]

Thanks for the detail @ndporter and @jcoliver Ultimately I am at a loss as to what you need from the Trainers Leadership Committee, in order to proceed.
What would you want the TLC to support you to do?
What could this project help the TLC in their role?

[ndporter]

@ragamouf my main purpose in bringing it to leadership was to ensure that the different format would be treated as complying with expectations of an official instructor training (that can be badged), as well as any feedback/advice.

The Become an Instructor page states:

The training runs over two full days or four half days

I don't see any official documentation of the timeframe in the Curriculum or Checkout page, nor in the handbook.

For technical workshops, I recall the specifications having been intentional about how spread out the workshops were allowed to be, though I can't find it now in the Requirements or the IT. When I was trained, I'm pretty sure it had to be 2-4 days.

If leadership has no issues with a more extended format, that should be all I need, other than to coordinate about our membership as related to the number of certifications we can offer.

[ragamouf]

Per Martha's rules, I have no problem with endorsing this from the TLC as a pilot to test instructor training as a graduate (for-credit) course, and would be happy to support the initiative and communicate it to Core Team and the Board of Directors.

[ndporter]

I like this idea too (unsuprisingly since I brought it up)

[jonathanwheeler01]

I also like this idea.

[annajiat]

I like this idea too and would love to see extended versions of different trainings that can be partly or fully integrated with credit or audit or remedial short/long undergraduate/graduate courses.

[ndporter]

This course has been approved to teach Spring 2025 at Virginia Tech (syllabus).