In order to further connect a Carpentries network across University of California (UC) campuses, Carpentries instructors from UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, and UC Berkeley — including BIDS Researcher Alex de Siqueira — recently decided to run a joint, virtual, 3-week Carpentries workshop open to students and researchers affiliated with these three UC campuses.
Once a quorum of instructors was recruited, the organizers made various curriculum and logistics decisions that would focus on optimizing the virtual cross-campus training environment for a learner-centered educational experience, e.g. increasing the number of instructors and offering more workshops sessions based on demand. This collaborative teaching platform enabled the organizers to amplify and strengthen existing regional Carpentries networks through increased sharing of instructional materials and ideas for scoping and adapting lessons, which lessens the need for each virtual workshop to start from scratch in terms of creating slides for lesson content or scaffolding challenges for breakout rooms.
The group is now discussing the creation of a shared UC-wide database of individual lesson materials (which could be edited and adapted to meet local needs) and expanding this initial model to include participation from more UC campuses. For example, Stephanie Labou has taken this cross-institutional model to collaboratively program the UC Love Data Week with other libraries in the UC system. By improving instruction through shared feedback and observation, Carpentries instructors across the UC system will be able to more effectively adapt and improve the workshops that are presented remotely.
Read more:
I See, UC, We All See Carpentries: Collaboratively Scaling Workshop Instruction Across a University System: Instructors' experiences running Carpentries workshops in the University of California System
January 7, 2021 | The Carpentries
Tim Dennis, Jamie Jamison, Stephanie Labou, Reid Otsuji, Scott Peterson, Justin Shaffer, Rick Mccosh, and Alexandre de Siqueira
