Wrapping Up the STScI Course

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The online portion of our work with learners at the Space Telescope Science Institute wound up today. 6 of the 14 people who took part in the on-site workshop submitted "graduation exercise" videos, and three more sent apologies (time pressure, technical difficulties, etc.), which I think is a pretty good completion rate. As always, we finished up by asking everyone to give us one good and one bad thing about the class:

Some of the apparent contradictions in the "Bad" column reflect the diversity of learners' backgrounds; once again, I think this was the biggest challenge we faced. Overall, though, it was an interesting contrast to my experience running a class through P2PU. I've taught the content of Software Carpentry dozens of times over 14 years, so I had something immediate to draw on for the folks at STScI. On the other hand, I've never completed a course online myself, so I didn't have relevant personal experience to bring to bear at P2PU. I hope that by engaging local helpers in future bootcamp follow-ups, we'll help to grow a pool of people who can do that kind of teaching better.