Apply to Become a Carpentries Instructor Trainer!

Are you an active Instructor looking to take your involvement with The Carpentries to the next level? Or, are you an experienced educator who has found something to love in our Instructor Training curriculum? Are you excited by the thought of going deep with our curriculum through reading and online discussion of the practices that underpin the success of our workshops?

If so, we would like to hear from you! We are about to open a new round of Instructor Trainer Training, an 8-week reading group and on-boarding to become a certified Carpentries Instructor Trainer. (Note that this is different from becoming a certified Instructor. Instructors lead workshops; Trainers lead Instructor Training events. Instructor applications are accepted on a rolling basis and may be found here.) Becoming a Trainer is a fantastic opportunity to grow your own training skills, which are increasingly in demand both in academia and industry.

Trainers are key to the continuing growth and success of The Carpentries. We are proud of our Instructor Training curriculum, and the effective delivery and ongoing improvement of this curriculum relies on the skill and dedication of our Trainers.

What do Instructor Trainers do?

• Co-teach Instructor Training workshops! While Trainers are welcome to share their skills with anyone at any time, the number of incoming Instructors that The Carpentries can support is limited. While Trainers can co-teach official events as part of a membership for their home institution, any additional training events must be approved by the Carpentries in order for trainees to be badged as Instructors. We ask Trainers to be available for a minimum of two 2-day official Instructor Training workshops per calendar year.
• Host teaching demonstration sessions! After attending an Instructor Training workshop, all prospective instructors complete three “checkout” steps, one of which is an online teaching demonstration. These are low-stakes, fun opportunities for final feedback to launch new Instructors on the path to leading successful workshops. We ask Trainers to run at least 4 teaching demonstrations per calendar year.
• Join the conversation! Trainers meet online 1-2 times per month and communicate via GitHub, email, and/or Slack. Through these communications they coordinate and discuss training, work on curriculum improvements, and help review applications for new Instructors and Trainers, among other things. Come and share your voice in the ways that work best for you!

How can you tell if the Trainer role is for you?

• Do you enjoy teaching and helping others develop their potential?
• Do you like to engage with theory about how people learn?
• Do you want to see The Carpentries instructor pool grow so that Carpentries training can expand into new territories?

If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, then consider applying for this training round.

What it will take to participate

Do you currently have the time to:

• Prepare for and attend a total of eight weekly meetings, starting in January, for Trainer certification?
• Prepare, teach, and provide feedback on at least two 2-day Centrally-Organised Instructor Training workshops per year?
• Host at least four 1-hour teaching demonstration sessions within a year?
• Attend meetings of, and/or actively participate with, the Trainer community through email, Slack, and/or GitHub?

To maximise people’s experience and potential for close interaction, we will be accepting only a small group of applicants. While we wish we could accept every applicant, spaces are limited, and we want to be strategic about broadening our Trainer group geographically. We are currently giving priority to Trainer applicants either located in or with strong ties to countries in Africa, Latin America, Australia, or New Zealand. We are also interested in increasing representation from diverse institution types, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities. We welcome enthusiastic and qualified applicants from all fields and locations!

If you have applied unsuccessfully before, please try again!

Apply now

Interested? Apply here by 12 December, 2018 at 20:00 UTC!

Provide your availability

This round of the Trainer training program will begin the week of 14 January. To ease scheduling, we ask that all applicants please indicate their availability for weekly meetings on this whenisgood poll. Please be sure to select your time zone at the top of the poll and mark all times in which you will be regularly available over the 8 week period beginning 14 January. To accommodate our geographic diversity, two weekly meetings will be held, and trainees may switch between meetings as fits their schedule. Your application will be evaluated independently of the availability that you provide, however, if you are invited to join the training group and are not able to attend either of the two scheduled meetings, your seat may be given to another applicant.

Please contact team@carpentries.org if you have any questions about the training program or Trainer duties. We look forward to seeing your application!