How we teach

Note: familiarity with all of the above concepts is not a requirement to teach on a Bio-IT course - we welcome and encourage any community member who wants to get involved!

Bio-IT courses/workshops are typically designed to maximise the time learners/participants have to apply what they’re learning. Many of our instructors are certified with The Carpentries and, inspired by their Instructor Training Curriculum, we try to organise and run our training events “in the Carpentries style.” Specifically:

• we aim to provide attendees with opportunities for guided practice while they learn.
  • Provide plenty of exercises and opportunities for formative assessment.
  • Teach with participatory live coding where possible
• using coloured sticky notes to monitor progress and collect feedback throughout the course/workshop
• have at least two instructors for every workshop (“never teach alone”) and helpers, to support learners during taught sessions

If you’d like to learn more about the evidence-based teaching practices mentioned above, we recommend reading the Carpentries Instructor Training curriculum, which is available in full online. Greg Wilson’s book, Teaching Tech Together, expands upon the same concepts and is similarly available to read.