The two-day “Software Carpentry: Instructor Training” workshop led by Greg Wilson, Co-founder of Software Carpentry, aimed to recruit volunteer instructors to offer computing training to their fellow life scientists by presenting best-practice on how to deliver training in programming.
Formed in 1998, Software Carpentry provides workshops for those within the science sector who lack the skills needed to utilise computational tools that can dramatically enhance their productivity. Such computer skills are vital to effectively conducting data-led research, however, there is a deficit of training available for non-computing specialists.
Software Carpentry aims to address this training need and has adopted a grassroots growth model that relies on volunteer instructors, who are scientists themselves, running training events for their peers. This peer-to-peer training enables the instructor to understand the primary needs of attendees as well as the group being able to share a lexicon and previous relatable experiences.
Greg introduced basic concepts from educational psychology and instructional design, and looked at how to apply these ideas in both intensive workshops and regular classes. For example, the group learnt how, making deliberate mistakes when instructing others helps those attending training to feel less anxious about making mistakes themselves. The session also actively encouraged the potential instructors to develop networks that they can later use to share experiences, good and bad, and so collaboratively refine the training that they offer.
“It’s brilliant to see TGAC hosting the first instructional training for software carpentry in Europe, said Vicky Schneider, Head of 361° Division (Scientific Training, Education & Learning) at TGAC. "To have Greg Wilson explaining how learning works and sharing his expertise has been a wonderful experience and will have a significant impact through the many participants whom are already engaged and applying what they learnt during this two days. We look forward to host another workshop in 2015.”
Greg Wilson, Co-founder of Software Carpentry, Canada, said: "We know as much about education and learning as we do about public health. The difference is, most people aren't aware of what we know, and therefore don't base their teaching practices on the best available research. By introducing people to a few key ideas, and showing them where they can find out more, we hope that this short course will help them improve all of their teaching, not just what they do in Software Carpentry workshops."
Participant Richard Smith-Unna, Computational Plant Biologist from Cambridge University, said: “This is training for us to be able to train other people; we already teach people but this is about how we can teach them better. As bioinformaticians we work with biologists who don’t have the capacity to understand the data they are generating. There’s a massive deficit of computational skills in our area of life sciences and Software Carpentry is the best programme I’ve seen for bringing people up to scratchh.”
Participant Nick Loman, Biosciences at University of Birmingham, commented: “This is really about the psychology of teaching and how to best get concepts across to an audience that may not be completely receptive – a big part of that is changing the mind-set of someone coming on a course from the idea of a push-button analysis to a deeper understanding of the software utilities, tools and databases that are available.”
Participant Emmanouil Farsarakis, Applications Developer from EPCC at The University of Edinburgh, added: “Here we are training instructors, people who will go on to run other courses all around the UK and Europe, we are establishing long term relationships and this is the starting point of future collaboration.”
Further links
“Software Carpentry: Lessons Learned” – TGAC Symposia
Storify by participant Peter Cock (Software Carpentry: Instructor Training)
Find out more on Twitter: #TGACswc
TGAC is strategically funded by BBSRC and operates a National Capability to promote the application of genomics and bioinformatics to advance bioscience research and innovation.
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For more information, please contact:
Hayley London
Marketing & Communications Officer, The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC).
T: +44 (0) 1603 450107,
E: [email protected]
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