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The Carpentries

Teaching Foundational Coding and Data Science Skills to Scholars Worldwide

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Angelique Trusler, PhD

19 May 2023

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Summary

  • Overview
  • History
  • Workshops
  • Instructor Training
  • The Carpentries in Africa
  • Get Involved

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  • Non-profit project
  • Global volunteer community of learners, lesson developers, trainers, instructors, etc.
  • Teaches foundational coding, and data science skills to researchers worldwide (i.e. R, Python, Spreadsheets, OpenRefine, Git)
  • Builds community and local capacity for teaching and learning

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Workshops

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The Carpentries Workshops

Volunteer Instructors, alongside helpers, use Carpentries lessons to teach the foundational skills and perspectives for working with software and data.�

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Carpentries Core Curricula

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  • This workshop is intended for people working in libraries and the information sciences. It introduces terms, phrases, and concepts in software development and data science, how to best work with data structures, and use regular expressions in searches
  • Unix Shell, OpenRefine and Git

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The Carpentries Workshops are 4 A’s

Accessible

    • Online or in-person
    • 2-day or other format
    • Open source curriculum & tools

Aligned

    • Collaboratively updated curriculum
    • Datasets relevant to learners
    • Peer Instruction

Approachable

    • Friendly learning environment
    • Meet learners where they are

Active

    • Participatory live coding
    • Helpers
    • Formative assessment - Stickies

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What you might learn at a workshop

Software Development Practices

  • Automating repetitive tasks
  • Transforming step−by−step workflows into scripts or functions
  • Using version control

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Data Analysis & Research Practices

  • Repeat an analyses
  • Developing a data management and analysis plan
  • Improving data management and project organisation
  • Using a programming language (like R or Python)
  • Reusing code

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What you might learn at a workshop

And more ..

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Instructor Training

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The Carpentries Instructor Training

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Trainers teach the basics of educational psychology, evidence-based classroom practices, and how to apply both to teaching.

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Instructor Training

Program Details

  • Online (most often) or in-person
  • 2 full days or 4 half days
  • 3 checkout steps to become a certified Instructor
    • Community Discussion
    • Lesson Contribution
    • 5-minute Teaching Demonstration

Outcomes

  • How do people learn?
  • How can we help novices become competent practitioners?
  • What is cognitive load and how does it affect learning?
  • How can we create a motivating environment for learners?
  • How do you run Carpentries workshop?

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Why Teach Carpentries Workshops?

  • To make your world better.
  • To expand your technical skills.
  • To join a community.
  • To get practice teaching.

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The Carpentries in Africa

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What have we achieved from 2014 - until now? 

  • 140 Instructors trained
  • 178 workshops hosted
  • 6 Member organisations from South Africa and Namibia
  • 16 Trainers (Ethiopia, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa)
  • Translated opening and closing events of CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 into isiZulu and isiXhosa
  • 7 African languages in Glosario (Afrikaans, Setswana, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Amharic, Kiswahili, Southern Sotho)

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Instructors in Africa

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What do we do?

  • African Carpentries Meetup
    • Every 4th Thursday of the month
    • Topic of the month
  • Mentoring for Instructors and Helpers before a workshop
  • Support in how to self-organise your Carpentries Workshop
  • More information: https://pad.carpentries.org/ZA-community-call

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Memberships in Africa

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What does 2023 hold?

  • Workbench
  • Re-designed carpentries.org
  • Updated check-out processes for Instructors in training
  • Community health: Professional development opportunities for community members

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Get Involved

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Ways to get involved:

  • Check out lessons on your own time
  • Sign up for a workshop
  • Help at a workshop (no need to be an Instructor)
  • Become an Instructor
  • Teach a workshop
  • Lesson Maintenance
  • Lesson Contributions - Incubator
  • Contribution to Glosario
  • Train Instructors

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More information

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Contact me

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Questions?

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